It’s why I love the research process something will spark my interest and then I find myself asking lots of questions. ⁠Ī Toni Morrison quote has also spurred me on to write: ‘If there’s a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.’⁠įor me, story ideas often come from the history. Instead, I looked to Small Island by Andrea Levy, which showed me that immigrant stories set in the UK could shed light on history that is never taught in schools, I looked to Half a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, which showed that books set in Africa could be widely loved and I finally, to Fingersmith by Sarah Waters and her focus on women’s and social history, which chimed with the things I wanted to explore in my own work. I’d always considered my second home to be East Africa, where my parents were born. But of course, those novels are set in India, a place I’d never even visited when I first read these books.

Growing up, I devoured the rich prose of Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children and Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things, looking for some trace of myself between the pages. Sometimes I’ll write on the sofa or even with my laptop on the kitchen worktop so that I can walk on the spot to get my daily steps in (although this is rare)! As I mentioned above, I wrote Kololo Hill on my smartphone on my commute but I’ve also written in libraries, coffee shops, parks, trains, planes – although not automobiles! What lasting effects have your favourite authors had on your writing and style?Īs someone from an underrepresented background, it didn’t occur to me that I could be an author.

Once that happens, I wouldn’t say they test my abilities because they start to ‘behave’ of their own accord! Getting to know them is half the fun of writing though. That is the point where they are still in the far distance, as though I’m looking at them through the fog. I find the early days of writing my characters the most complicated stage. In what ways do your characters test your abilities? On weekdays I aim for 500 words a day and on weekends around 2000 words. I find I write best in the earlier hours of the day and set myself targets. I knew I just needed to get the novel written.

I’ve taught myself to write whenever and wherever because the last thing I need is further restrictions and rules that might hamper my efforts. While writing my debut novel Kololo Hill, I wrote on my smartphone during my commute and at weekends on my laptop. For one thing I work full time in marketing and therefore have to find the time whenever I can to write. I was hooked from the first sentence and decided to explore stories about people with similar backgrounds to my own. It was only in 2015, after many years building a career in marketing, that I did short online course in creative writing. I wrote stories as a child but stopped when I reached my teens.

Kololo hill by neema shah