365 Interviews

Interview 118: DanaScully

1. Can you tell me a little bit about yourself?

I'm a writer, I guess. My name is Sanjeet (not Dana) and I'm really quite boring. I'm in the middle of studying for some really important exams which start in May.

I have 23 exams. HELP!

2. What inspired you to write?

The very first thing which inspired me to write was a poetry competition by etherealinsanity (Aysha). I wrote some poetry and was getting really positive feedback, so I began to write some poetry of my own and 'delay', which is a thing. I don't know what it is, it's just a VERY short story.

Then I entered LovelyLivvi's competition and thought to myself 'hey, I can write a book one day if I wanted to, surely?' And so I wrote 'collarbones'.

I had so much support from so many people like natsuriayuko, 12Anne16 and eavesdrop_ who encouraged me to not give up on writing just by leaving me lovely comments. :)

3. Do you have a specific writing style?

I genuinely don't know. Some people do pick up on how my writing style seems to be full of emotion and very poetic, so I guess I like to use lots of metaphors and similes to really put across the speaker's feelings.

I notice that I tend to like writing in third-person, because it gives me a sense of detachment from the character and leaves me free to explore the style in which I predominately write in.

But hey, maybe all this is just me being delusional and I just write normally.

4. How did you come up with your titles?

They are honestly so simple, but required some thought.

With 'Release' (my poetry collection) it's based on me 'releasing' my own thoughts and thoughts I believe others may have about their lives as a way to let people connect with the book. I love the cover (made by etherealinsanity) because the waves reflect an unhinged mind with harboured thoughts and feelings, waiting to be released.

With 'delay', it's just because it's the main theme of the book.

With 'collarbones', it's to reflect how it's the main cause, the main target and the main challenge that Anna strives to achieve throughout. One or two people have said that I should capitalise the 'c', but I wanted to leave it lowercase because it reflects how unhinged Anna's mind is on her journey for her own collarbones. :)

5. Is there a message in your novel that you want readers to grasp?

I think with this I'll just focus on 'collarbones', since it's my most popular book.

With 'collarbones', I want the readers to reflect how many people with an eating disorder aren't proud of it and they most certainly don't want the attention that comes with it. In 'collarbones' there's this line which really just punches home the whole meaning of the book:

'Anna sighed again. “You know that I have one [an eating disorder], but you don’t understand what it means,” she pointed out.'

In my redraft I want to develop certain things about her disorder, but right now I'm busy with exams. :)

6. How much of your writing is realistic?

In my writing I aim to make it very realistic so that it's relatable.

But, when I read some of the things Trent says, I honestly can't even stop myself from screaming in hate towards my writing.

I just... OH MY GOD IT'S TERRIBLE.

When I redraft, I'm developing their relationship more and making it seem a little more realistic and I'm going to try and make it into a full-fledged, therapeutic book if I can. :)