Why I Write
Q & A with author Saad T. Farooqi
Born in Saudi Arabia, Saad T. Farooqi moved to Pakistan before his first birthday. There, he survived three separate kidnapping attempts before he was eight. His family eventually settled in the United Arab Emirates. After initially enrolling in electrical engineering to please his parents, Saad graduated with a BA in English Literature from the American University of Sharjah. He then earned an MFA in Creative Writing from Kingston University, London. Saad immigrated to Canada in 2015 and resides in London, Ontario. At Kingston University, he studied under several notable authors, including Rachel Cusk and Elif Safak. His short stories and poems have appeared in various magazines in the US, UK, and UAE.
Describe your writing space. What do you love about it?
My writing is nomadic, in both themes and function. It took 15 years to finish writing White World. In this time, I’ve written in all kinds of places – from dingy rooms with one functioning light during my broke graduate student days, to public libraries. I’ve written in cars (in the passenger seat), buses, trains, and planes. Last year, I mastered the art of writing while balancing my laptop and a sleeping baby.
These days, I write mostly based on what feels comfortable in the moment. It could be out in the yard on a good sunny day or in the basement with piles of folded laundry around during winter.
How important is it to have ‘a room of one’s own’?
I’m old friends with the Pakistani-Canadian musician Ali Noor (Vehshi Ali). He developed a cheat code for quitting smoking: he only lit one up when he was enjoying someone’s company (who didn’t mind secondhand smoke).
According to Ali, “the company makes the smoke, not the other way around.”
I feel the same way about writing spaces. When I write, it’s more about my headspace than the physical space. You could be in the most conducive space in the world, but it won’t make your writing any better or worse. Much of White World was written during severe bouts of insomnia, on cramped bus rides, or with sleepy, screaming twin babies perched on each arm.
P.S. Ali has successfully quit smoking. Either that, or he doesn’t enjoy my company anymore.
Any rules for when you’re in this ‘space’?
No rules. Just learn to adapt and enjoy the process.
What is your writing practice like?
I break down writing into two parts: planning character arcs and then using the themes and plot to glue it all together. The plot is almost always secondary to the character arcs and malleable.
When it comes to characters, the most important things for me are:
· Figuring out what they want and why
· Establishing their vulnerabilities and hinting at the causes
· Nailing down their unique voice in narration and dialogue
· Fleshing out their relationships with other characters, specifically from the lens of how they contrast/reflect in their values, flaws, and virtues.
Once I’ve written a page or passage, I read it aloud over and over to nail down the cadence and rhythm. I even do it while pacing about the room and keep editing until I feel like the words are flowing seamlessly.
Do you quantify your process by word count or hours spent writing?
Word count. I edit as I write, so for me, it’s about how many words I put on paper that will require minimal edits afterward.
What is your creative process like?
It always starts with a striking image. When I first conceived White World, it was the imagery of a man finding a woman floating in the sky while everything around them was destroyed and covered with snow. I then began writing around that image — his story, her story, what happened to the city around them, and what led them both to where they are now.
This extends to the characters as well. I imagine the situations in which the character is most content, most wistful, and what would count as their go-to place to be. A character could be happiest when reading a book in a park, most wistful when running into an old flame, and their go-to place could be a small diner which offers a great place to watch people going by. It all builds around the character and how you’ve conceived them.
What is the easiest and most difficult part of the process for you?
I’m very big on establishing a character’s voice. If you can figure out how a character talks, you can figure out how they think. Discovering this voice is the hardest part. I tend to exclusively write from the first-person perspective so it’s important to establish the character’s inflection, emotional range, rhythm, and verbal tics. These can only be gleaned after you’ve fleshed out the character fully—what do they want? What are they scared of? Why? This process can be very time-consuming. It took almost a year to conceive Red as a character and figure out how she talks. Until then, I couldn’t write a word from her POV that I was happy with because it never felt authentic.
The easiest part? I find writing dialogues pretty straightforward. Once I’ve figured out things like verbal tics and emotional range, writing dialogues becomes easy.
Why do you write? What do you love about writing?
It’s a surprisingly difficult question to answer. I’ve always felt like I don’t belong to any country, creed, or culture. Be it Canada, UAE, or Pakistan, I’ve never felt like I have a home. I could tell you I write because I have a need to tell my story. But in this act of telling my story, I’m part of a collective story. A story about us; a story about the human condition. And, outside of my wife and sons, that’s the closest thing to a home that I have. I speak a little later about lineage in literature, and that’s something I love about writing: it allows me to be connected to others across space and time.
How do you manage writing with other demands on your time?
Paul Auster used to say that getting a page of writing done a day was a great day of writing. Like with most things writing, he was right. As someone with a day job, a wife and twins, and other passions besides writing, I think managing to write a few paragraphs that I feel are solid, is better than writing 10 pages that I’d have to spend hours editing. The focus should always be on quality.
Also, writing is not just about putting pen to paper but about planning. You may not have time to write a page but what you can do is map out a character arc, a plot point, or even jot down notes for a theme you want to explore. Anything that helps you map out the story and the characters should also count as “writing”.
What has influenced you most as a writer?
Film noir and comic books. I’m a firm believer in exposing yourself to all storytelling mediums. All art is interconnected. There’s poetry in dance, there’s melody in prose, there’s movement in movies, there’s a symphony in composing a play. Until my mid-teens, the only storytelling that I cared about was old film noir movies and comic books. However, I don’t consider that a detriment. Quite the contrary, they both taught me the importance of crisp, striking language. Whether it’s laconic superheroes or hardboiled detectives, all fat is cut out from the writing because there’s little room for excess. Film noirs and comic books also share powerful visuals, which I like to think is a staple of my writing.
Do you want each book to stand on its own, or are you trying to build a body of work with connections between each book?
I’m wrapping up the draft of my second novel, God of Sand. While the story and themes are very different from White World, I think of all my stories as taking place in the same universe where characters from different books may be connected one way or another.
Best advice you’ve ever been given.
“Writing is a journey, not a destination.”
It’s something my wife said to me after the rejection letters kept piling. It’s straightforward but without it, it’s easy to get lost in despair and disappointment.
What does success look like to you?
Success is relative. A few weeks ago, I saw White World on Goodreads.com. This was important to me because I first discovered Goodreads when I immigrated to Canada about ten years ago. At that time, I had just started reaching out to agents and publishing houses. I remember telling my wife that I was daydreaming about seeing White World on Goodreads one day. That is one version of success.
On a larger scale, I try to be very conscious of lineage in literature. My philosophy professor once explained that you can trace the genealogy of Western philosophers back to Plato because every philosopher is in dialogue with the ones who came before. So, Camus was talking to Sartre, who was in discussion with Nietzsche, who was communicating with Kierkegaard, and so forth. I’m interested in a similar lineage in literature because every writer stands on the shoulders of giants who came before. My journey as a writer wouldn’t have happened without Camus. Since then, it’s included Marilynne Robinson, Garth Ennis, Sandra Cisneros, Gabriel García Márquez, Paul Auster, Kentaro Miura, and many more. I consider this to be my lineage.
“When it’s all said and done, success for me would be having earned the respect of my peers and leaving behind stories that are worthy of someone else’s lineage.”
Tell us a few things that would surprise us to learn about you: the person, the writer.
Were it not for a severe neck injury as a child, I’d likely have been a professional boxer today. I consider it my first love because long before writing, comic books, and film noir, I was obsessing over fight tapes of Sugar Ray Robinson and Roberto Duran. There was a time I could rattle off a boxer’s career stats off the top of my head, going as far back as Rocky Marciano.
What can books teach us? How do they change us?
Like all art, books grant us an opportunity to change for the better. Whether it’s an opinion we hold too closely, an emotion that grips us too hard, or trauma that lingers too long, a good book can, at the very least, offer a different perspective. Sometimes that’s all it takes for us to change.
What was a transformative book for you in your life?
If it weren’t for A Happy Death by Albert Camus, I wouldn’t be a writer. It’s as simple as that. My parents had decided that I was going to be an engineer like my father, and it wasn’t yet a destiny I had rebelled against. Then I read A Happy Death and decided that I was going to be a writer. This book changed the trajectory of my life, so no matter what I write, this novel, and Camus, will be a part of it somehow.
Which authors, living or dead, would you most like to discuss writing with?
Marilynne Robinson is, for me, the greatest writer I’ve ever read. Whether it’s the melody of the language, the imagery, or the emotions she conjures, I can’t think of another writer who’s made me re-read passages over and over for the sheer joy of reading more than her. So, Robinson has to be the person I’d love to discuss writing with the most.
Who are your favorite writers writing today?
Marilynne Robinson, Sandra Cisneros, Haruki Murakami, Nani Power, Josh Bazell. So many more.
What books are you currently loving?
I’m currently reading Not That Kind of Place by Michael Melgaard. He’s definitely someone to watch out for. Amazing writer, amazing book.
If you were a bookseller what 5 books would you hand-sell to readers and why?
Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson – the lyrical harmony of this book is second to none. It took me months to finish reading this book because I kept re-reading passages again and again. When that wasn’t enough, the richness of visuals and the powerful but understated emotions in the book are simply unforgettable.
The Book of Illusions by Paul Auster – a Gordian knot of thematic overlaps, intertextuality, and parallelism. Much like Raymond Carver, Auster was a writer’s writer and everything you need to know about the art of storytelling is in this book. A masterclass.
The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros – Cisneros combines lyrical prose with one of the most imaginative, sensual uses of the five senses. “She is always sad like a house on fire.”
Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami – it’s such a bleak story, but its raw imagination, humor, and innocence make it a unique read. I’ve yet to read a book quite like it.
Lastly, Moby Dick, because come on, it’s the greatest book ever written. Period.
What advice do you have for writers?
Every art form is worth exploring and dissecting. Read a bit of everything, read comic books and manga, play video games, explore different genres of movies and TV shows across cultures, even watch professional wrestling. Ric Flair’s retirement match against Shawn Michaels – by the end, there wasn’t a dry eye in the audience of over 74,000 people. That’s storytelling! A good story transcends mediums and genres.
Thank you Saad.