NAZ KUTUB: Tapping into your past while writing fiction

Naz Kutub is back! Earlier this year, Naz released "No Time Like Now" about a teen who finds out their magical power isn't so magical afterall and now he's got a tough decision to make. Think "Loki" meets "A Christmas Carol". It's a beautiful book about grief, but also quirky and fun in a way only Naz can write.

In this conversation, we're digging into grief, mental health, and how to shift your mindset for writing... which might be a smidge controversial.

BUY THE BOOKS (Bookshop):
The Loophole
No Time Like Now

BUY THE BOOKS (Amazon):
The Loophole
No Time Like Now

Transcript

00;00;03;07 - 00;00;23;26
Speaker 1
Hi and welcome to the Literary Hype podcast. I'm Stephanie, your literary hype woman. Today's author conversation is a returning guest. I first met Nas cartoon back in 2021 before his book The Loophole came out. And now this year 2024 he's got a new book and that is called No Time Like Now. This is another why.

00;00;23;26 - 00;00;24;09
Speaker 2
A.

00;00;25;03 - 00;00;48;12
Speaker 1
Fantasy contemporary blend he really loves blending genres and that is true of this book as much as it was in the first book the loophole. So we have to talk about blending genres because he does that so well. But on the flip side of that he also has some heavier topics in this. So we do discuss grief and processing grief and mental health through this story.

00;00;48;24 - 00;01;15;00
Speaker 1
So without any further ado, here's my new conversation with NASCAR to well, welcome to Literary. It's so exciting to have you back on the show, even though we can do it in person this time. But it's still very exciting to have you back this time. We're talking about your new book, No Time Like Now or So. For anyone who hasn't seen this already, give us a little bit about what it's about.

00;01;15;05 - 00;01;54;21
Speaker 2
It's about having this kid who's got this strange ability to grant other people life extra to extend their life, especially those people who are dying. And he started getting this ability after his father died a year ago. And so he's been granting several people like 22 years, for example, including his hamster and the day his grandma is about to die and he decides to grant her extra life all times stops, everything freezes.

00;01;54;21 - 00;02;30;25
Speaker 2
And this being time appears and tells him that the universe, the whole universe, as we've come to know it is about to be destroyed unless he takes back some of those the time he's given because he's actually been giving away his remaining years instead and is has given away too much. And so they go through time against time to figure out who he needs to take life back from, knowing that whoever he takes life back from will ceased to live.

00;02;31;18 - 00;02;57;06
Speaker 2
So it's kind of a journey through grief and it's still kind of fun, I think. But mostly it's just him trying to deal with the love he had for his dad and how and who he's going to give the remaining of his love to.

00;02;57;11 - 00;02;59;27
Speaker 1
And this feels like Loki meets a Christmas Carol.

00;03;00;10 - 00;03;01;01
Speaker 2
Kind of.

00;03;01;15 - 00;03;03;22
Speaker 1
Yeah. Where are you going to be working for this story?

00;03;03;28 - 00;03;26;23
Speaker 2
Oh my gosh. The inspiration is not really an inspiration. It was more like events that transpire in my personal life. I had gone through a horrible breakup. The first revision was super dark. It was the first draft. I mean, I've gone through a horrible breakup. I had to move out. I was working for him, so I had to quit my job.

00;03;28;10 - 00;03;57;09
Speaker 2
I had two dogs. I had to leave them behind and then as I was driving, I got rear ended and my car was totaled. And this all happened within like a week, two weeks. And so I was like in a really down downward spiral. Right? And so I started writing the story about this kid and again, really dark and trigger warning suicide.

00;03;57;27 - 00;04;22;04
Speaker 2
But this kid who was so depressed, who was going through such a horrible time in life that on the very first page, he decides to hang himself and he hangs himself and the sound of his neck breaking was so loud that time was distracted from whatever they were doing. And time appeared and forced him to relive his day again and again.

00;04;24;21 - 00;04;29;07
Speaker 2
Until they found a reason to live. So that was the very first draft I had.

00;04;30;06 - 00;04;31;26
Speaker 1
That's very different.

00;04;31;26 - 00;04;50;04
Speaker 2
I know it's so different. It's so different. This book is totally different from that. So that was the genesis of the story. I was in a really dark place, and, you know, now I'm in a much better place. When I was drafting this, when I pitched the story to my editor, it was not that it was totally different.

00;04;50;15 - 00;05;18;13
Speaker 2
It was more like him dealing with his father's death. And, you know, he just has so much love to give and he did not know how to give it other than to grant people life. And so it's more like you know, just figuring out how to love a God instead of how to keep going. So, yeah, it's totally different it's it's funnier and funnier than that.

00;05;18;13 - 00;05;36;20
Speaker 2
First draft was like, I submit my critique back and I was like, Nas, I'm praying for you every night. I was like, I'm fine. I just I just need to write my sadness out. And that was it. Don't worry about me. So yeah, so that was a rough time now. Much better. So we're good. We're good.

00;05;36;29 - 00;05;43;29
Speaker 1
This does deal heavily with grief. And I read your book, Anna's book and Kristen's book back to back because we were doing Emerald City together.

00;05;44;04 - 00;05;44;22
Speaker 2
When.

00;05;45;00 - 00;06;09;23
Speaker 1
All of them have dead dads. I was like, Why are you doing this to me? But there's so much even since then and since reading these books back earlier this year, there have been so many other books coming out with a really heavy theme of grief. Why is that? Such a big trend right now? And why is it especially important to you that teens see themselves in dealing with grief on the page?

00;06;09;23 - 00;06;36;06
Speaker 2
Therapy has a like still has a huge amount of stigma like tied to it. And I think a lot of people, not just teens, a lot of people in general don't know how to deal with negative emotions. And grief is considered a negative emotion, right? Like it's just doesn't make you feel good. A lot of people don't know what to do with all the grief that they have and they spiral into depression.

00;06;37;27 - 00;07;08;05
Speaker 2
And I think being able to talk about it at a really young age and for adults in a child's environment to be cognizant of someone dealing with negative emotions is super important because when I was young, we weren't allowed to deal with. We weren't we weren't there was just nothing, no outlet to deal with grief. My dad like, why are you crying?

00;07;08;05 - 00;07;36;22
Speaker 2
You know, there's no reason to cry. Like, Oh, I shouldn't. Um, so I think maybe it's not just for youth to deal with. Maybe adults should finally learn to deal with the grief that they've been hiding inside, especially if they can't afford therapy because therapy is not cheap. Um, even with your copay, with their health insurance is not going to be super cheap.

00;07;37;11 - 00;07;55;26
Speaker 2
So I don't know. I think the pandemic also had something to do with it. Like, there were three years of, like, no memory making, you know, that's why I think all those three years, like, what were Blair to a lot of people? Because we weren't allowed to make a lot of memories. Every day was pretty much the same day.

00;07;56;09 - 00;08;15;26
Speaker 2
You know, we were stuck at home zooming of people and binge watching, like, do we even remember a lot of what we watched? Probably not. So I think a lot of people are finally learning that they have to grieve for those three years that we all lost.

00;08;16;00 - 00;08;20;18
Speaker 1
How do you take care of your mental health while you're writing such heavy topics like grief?

00;08;20;18 - 00;08;47;03
Speaker 2
God, I love to eat. I feel like food is always like comforting. You know, chocolate, lots of chocolate. Chocolate. It's amazing. How the chocolate just does something to the brain. But like, it's funny because to me, it's no longer really difficult to write really heavy topics because I've gone through so much when I was younger that I'm just tapping into the past.

00;08;47;12 - 00;09;17;09
Speaker 2
It's, you know, it's not like I have to channel all that emotion in that very moment because I have already I had already experienced that. So it's just me being myself back then and just putting it down on page. So, yeah, it's I it's kind of tricky, right? Trying not to channel but still tapping into it. Got to do what it got to do when you're right.

00;09;17;15 - 00;09;31;05
Speaker 1
So it's true. It's true, yeah. When we talked last time you were talking, you were still writing this book and you talked about it and saying you're processing your grief of losing your dad. Obviously, his name has lost his dad in this book.

00;09;31;15 - 00;09;32;02
Speaker 2
Yeah.

00;09;32;18 - 00;09;37;04
Speaker 1
Did that stir up anything in you or make you feel some kind of way?

00;09;37;04 - 00;10;03;11
Speaker 2
They're expecting I gave them a terrible relationship, kind of like my first book where he had a horrible relationship with dad and my editor was like, can we switch this up? Can we can we give them a good relationship instead? And I was like, Oh, God, I have to make him love his dad. And so the first book was basically my relationship with my dad in real life when he was still alive.

00;10;03;27 - 00;10;31;05
Speaker 2
And this one was more like what I wished I could have had with my dad. So it was more like a fantasy. And so there's a scene where he's forced to relive the day of his dad dying again and again and learn that it had to happen for him to move on. And at one point he was like, Dad, can I just can you just can I just be a baby to you again?

00;10;31;05 - 00;10;51;10
Speaker 2
Can you just hold me in your chest? And I think I tried I was thinking about that. I was like, is this in this scene cringe? Is this going to make people, like, weirded out, like a 16 year old boy asking to lie on his father's chest and to him, it was like he wanted to hear his dad's heart again.

00;10;51;20 - 00;11;18;00
Speaker 2
Is it that how died of a heart attack? And he wanted to feel what it felt like when they used to do things when he was a child, a toddler. And so at first, since dad was a bit weirded out and then he was like, you know what, this day is kind of weird. But let's do it. And so he, uh, he laid there on his dad's chest, and at times I wondered, like, would I have wanted that with my dad?

00;11;18;06 - 00;11;44;09
Speaker 2
Like, because my dad never really helped me. You know, he was one of those dads who, like, macho, like, you know, no affection, no nothing. And so I did. I kind of I think that was like an extreme example of me wanting affection for my dad, which he never gave each who was just not capable of it. And so, yeah, totally different from my first book, more fantasy with the relationship.

00;11;45;00 - 00;11;54;13
Speaker 2
Um, and I guess it was a way of me dealing with my grief, my grief of not having a relationship with them, really.

00;11;54;20 - 00;12;02;03
Speaker 1
And you mentioned the heartbeat on the first page. You talked about there's like 31 million, blah, blah, blah, blah.

00;12;02;06 - 00;12;02;24
Speaker 2
I got really.

00;12;02;24 - 00;12;12;12
Speaker 1
Long. Number four. Yeah. So the year how did you come up with that number and like, what do people why would you choose to do math?

00;12;12;14 - 00;12;21;28
Speaker 2
It was so weird, right? Like, so I was like, you know, it was just an average like 60 beats per minute and then multiplied. Was it a year or was it in someone's lifetime? Was it a year? A year?

00;12;22;16 - 00;12;23;25
Speaker 1
I was down in a year.

00;12;24;09 - 00;12;49;21
Speaker 2
Yeah. I mean, why not throw some math at people in the very beginning and save, you know, catches their fancy because the book is numbers, right? 22 Years of Life that he would give away and then they travel into the distant past to travel to the future. They travel through the multiverse and all that. Um, and it's a three friends, the three friends he gave life to that stopped being friends with them.

00;12;51;08 - 00;13;13;27
Speaker 2
And one of them he had a huge crush on and someone he confessed to being in love with who didn't feel the same way. So yeah, I don't know. Numbers are pretty fun. I think I like number. We know. I know, I know, I know. But yeah.

00;13;13;28 - 00;13;18;28
Speaker 1
I was just in one ear out the other. Like, if I didn't have to go back and write this down, I would not remember what.

00;13;18;29 - 00;13;32;08
Speaker 2
I, I don't even remember what that 30 million number is, but like, is it 30 million? It's a lot. That's a lot. It's on the very first page. How many million is that? 32 million.

00;13;33;26 - 00;13;38;15
Speaker 1
Yeah. 31 million. 536,000 is the number that you wrote.

00;13;38;24 - 00;13;39;04
Speaker 2
Oh my.

00;13;39;05 - 00;13;50;22
Speaker 1
Like it's math making it 365 days the entire year I've had to live without my dad. Can you pick out the number of beats left. That's like the 692.

00;13;51;04 - 00;13;51;16
Speaker 2
Billion.

00;13;51;18 - 00;13;56;29
Speaker 1
Billion, whatever there's too much zeros.

00;13;57;24 - 00;14;01;04
Speaker 2
Oh ok. I kind of. Don't you like it though.

00;14;01;04 - 00;14;06;12
Speaker 1
Like it's interesting. It makes you think about it. It's like.

00;14;07;02 - 00;14;07;20
Speaker 2
Yeah.

00;14;07;21 - 00;14;10;20
Speaker 1
You could spin off of the smallness all at the same time.

00;14;10;28 - 00;14;13;10
Speaker 2
Yeah. The countdown to life right.

00;14;13;22 - 00;14;17;15
Speaker 1
Um, this is why we don't work out. It just reduces your number of heartbeats, right?

00;14;19;06 - 00;14;26;04
Speaker 2
It sure does, because your heart beats twice as fast um, so just stick to what you're doing.

00;14;26;18 - 00;14;27;18
Speaker 1
Stay calm.

00;14;28;06 - 00;14;36;04
Speaker 2
Yeah. No stress, no cortisol. I think he just needed something to count the days by. I like that opening.

00;14;36;16 - 00;14;55;20
Speaker 1
It was a good opening. It was definitely eye catching and intriguing. So bravo to you on that. And to you and your side characters, because we talked a little bit about time, a little bit more about time as a character. What was the process like for you to create time as a character? It's funny because I.

00;14;55;20 - 00;15;16;20
Speaker 2
Tried people kept comparing it to Christmas Carol, so I didn't one time to be anything like those three characters, right? Ghosts of Christmas, past, present and future. But I also want the time to be still fun and reminiscent of Reggie in my first book because I love Reggie so much.

00;15;18;19 - 00;15;22;02
Speaker 1
So the characters that remind me of you. So it's like you.

00;15;22;08 - 00;15;22;20
Speaker 2
Yeah.

00;15;22;21 - 00;15;24;14
Speaker 1
Inserting myself in the story.

00;15;24;14 - 00;15;44;19
Speaker 2
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Again, time is pretty much me was me. I, I wanted, I wanted a character who is kind of like, nebulous, but had a form, had a distinct personality, was irregular. Like some of the reviews were like, there are a lot of inconsistencies.

00;15;44;19 - 00;15;44;25
Speaker 1
Which.

00;15;44;25 - 00;16;29;06
Speaker 2
Is which. Well, I'm totally fine with because time is an irrational concept. Time is irrational, time is an irrational being. So whatever whatever they say could or could not be true. Um, and they are trying to deal with the destruction of fans. I timeline through this one boy who couldn't make up his mind. So yeah, I want that time to be a conundrum um, and having the prana sphere in the current sphere as this ball that they have that contains all of time within.

00;16;30;17 - 00;16;58;01
Speaker 2
And so they travel through within time and all that in the sphere, I just threw anything and everything that I could think of about time, like a bit of Doctor Who, um, so it feels kind of a bit like Doctor Who into it. Yeah. I think time has built a wonderful character of their own in the book, and I think when time appears, that's when it starts to get really kind of fun.

00;16;58;03 - 00;17;07;22
Speaker 1
Yes, that is definitely true. Especially one thing I loved about time is how time mixes up so many words and phrases.

00;17;07;22 - 00;17;11;21
Speaker 2
They just do whatever they want with words and phrases.

00;17;11;23 - 00;17;16;12
Speaker 1
How much fun was it for you to, like, mix up those words intentionally?

00;17;16;12 - 00;17;22;23
Speaker 2
Let's like one of my favorite things to do, just to mix up words and to play around with words because like, you know.

00;17;22;23 - 00;17;23;17
Speaker 1
People think.

00;17;23;17 - 00;17;50;02
Speaker 2
Good writing is a command of the vocabulary, right? The biggest vocabulary you can have. That's why adult books are so dense, full and dense with like ridiculous words that you would never use in everyday life. Whereas I love to invent words, you know, it's like the child in me just making up one's own words and like combining words to convey a meaning a portmanteau.

00;17;50;05 - 00;18;23;21
Speaker 2
I love portmanteau so many of them in the book I just I think that's my style of writing, just playing with words and not just displaying words. You know? No, you know, I don't want to, like, put down any author who have any other words, like an amazing command of English language. I just I feel like each author is has his or her or their own brand, and I choose not to showcase my vocabulary, but to play with that well.

00;18;24;05 - 00;18;37;02
Speaker 1
Play with form in chapter 34. Oh, there is no aside from apostrophes, no punctuation, yeah. I been crazy to try to write that without it.

00;18;37;03 - 00;18;38;12
Speaker 2
Oh, my God, you just.

00;18;39;11 - 00;18;42;13
Speaker 1
OK, so that was such a cool experiment.

00;18;42;13 - 00;19;07;26
Speaker 2
And I love that my editor like went ahead with it, right? Like for those sort of watching. So there's this chapter where Azeem, the main character, decides, you know what, I don't want to play around with this anymore. I say just like throws the crossfire around and they get transported into a ridiculous like, time travel nonsense thing. And I was like, you know what?

00;19;07;26 - 00;19;22;01
Speaker 2
I'm going to try and give the illusion of a sense of, like, confusion so I played around with no punctuation, and you don't know who's talking, who's saying what, but you kind of have an idea because, you know, they're both very distinct personalities.

00;19;24;07 - 00;19;59;08
Speaker 2
And my editor agreed to it, and it was one whole long paragraph like, what a page and a half two pages. No breaks are strange things happening on the page. And yeah, even the copy editor was like, Do we want it to be this way? And my editor was like, Yes. So yeah, it worked. And I love that we took a chance and went on the page and I give and I love that when you read it, you feel disoriented.

00;19;59;26 - 00;20;25;13
Speaker 2
You know, it's like, what's happening? Because that's exactly what was meant to be happening. I could have easily done what most people would do, and that's just do a line by line description. Of what's happening. But I feel like the stylized version of that chapter was so cool to like execute and experiment with. I'm just so glad that, you know, my editor at Bloomsbury agreed with that.

00;20;25;16 - 00;20;35;10
Speaker 1
It was so fun because you're right, it is disorienting when you're like reading it. You're like, Wait a minute, this hasn't this is all one sentence. This is all one sentence. It's all one sentence.

00;20;35;10 - 00;20;38;13
Speaker 2
You're right. It's a whole sentence. One paragraph, no breaks. Yeah.

00;20;38;29 - 00;20;46;19
Speaker 1
It's a very long paragraph. So yeah, it does really give you that feeling of like, what's going on, which translates to what the characters are doing.

00;20;46;22 - 00;21;10;18
Speaker 2
Yeah, it was so cool. It was so cool to come up with because I was like, I have to make sure that whoever is reading knows which character you're confused, but you can still figure out who's saying what. Yeah, pretty cool. I love being an author because I get to do, like, things like these. Like, I get to experiment with words, I get to play with words, I get to play with like text and still convey the story.

00;21;10;23 - 00;21;11;14
Speaker 2
You know, made.

00;21;11;17 - 00;21;15;22
Speaker 1
The story partially through a hipster. Oh my God.

00;21;18;00 - 00;21;21;27
Speaker 2
That was another choice that my editor was totally fine with, right?

00;21;22;07 - 00;21;42;06
Speaker 1
Yes. OK, so this book came out around the time of Argyle, so Argyle she's got the cat in the Dome backpack and oh my God, Mary Shelley in the the hamster in the Dome backpack. And I was like, well, did you even notice that or what was it like for you to have that come out at the same time and be like, Oh, media tag.

00;21;42;14 - 00;21;59;21
Speaker 2
Yeah. So weird, right? Like, I did it first because, you know, text is for a book to come out. I was like, this boy is in his thoughts all the time, and he can't just keep talking to himself and but yet he has to because a hamster cannot talk.

00;21;59;25 - 00;22;01;09
Speaker 1
So I think it was kind of.

00;22;02;00 - 00;22;42;23
Speaker 2
A a choice to have his hamster talk to him in his brain. But the fact that Time could also hear the hamster was another choice. And again, I'm just so glad that my editor was fine with me taking all these risks. Um, she was great to work with Alex Porco yeah. She let the story fly, and I think she also realized if it was just him and time it was going to be a drag to have two characters talk through the entire book from beginning to end.

00;22;43;19 - 00;22;53;19
Speaker 2
So I like having, like, Mary Shelley there she was. Such a fun addition, so much sass. Like the gay best friend you know.

00;22;53;24 - 00;22;57;05
Speaker 1
Who was more fun to craft time or Mary Shelley.

00;22;57;19 - 00;23;25;20
Speaker 2
Time. Time felt more like a main character, and Mary Shelley felt more like a side character. So Time felt more realized. And also, Time was a fantastical character. Like, unreal. Like, I can't even think about any other characters, like, like named Time. Like, I'm sure there is a personification of time in other books, but I can't think of any.

00;23;25;23 - 00;23;31;16
Speaker 1
And I also cannot think of any off the top of my head, but I know that they have to exist. Yeah, I was.

00;23;31;16 - 00;23;42;19
Speaker 2
Kind of a long time ago. I read The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak, and I was like, Oh, I would love to have characters like Death. And then I was like, You know, what other time inside of time?

00;23;42;26 - 00;23;49;15
Speaker 1
So you did an interview where you said, like, if you only have one book in you, then you should just not bother writing.

00;23;50;10 - 00;23;50;21
Speaker 2
Mm hmm.

00;23;51;02 - 00;23;58;16
Speaker 1
Explain it. Talk about that a little bit. I'm very simple. I think a lot of people.

00;23;58;16 - 00;24;27;00
Speaker 2
And in general, you know, I romanticized by successes, right? You hear about success in the stock market and suddenly you want to dabble. You hear about an author doing really well, and suddenly you're like, OK, I have a book in me. I can write. But what a lot of people don't realize is that writing one book doesn't mean it's going to be a blockbuster.

00;24;28;06 - 00;24;58;23
Speaker 2
The amount of time it takes either way, right? Traditional publishing going through a publisher or self-publishing requires so much effort, requires so much luck so many first time authors don't get their first books published. You don't even get an agent with it. Out of most of my friends only one got an agent with a first book and sold it so that's really hard.

00;24;59;07 - 00;25;31;21
Speaker 2
If you think you can have one book and you can get it published and that you'll make a living out of it. Um, the odds are against everyone who think they can get their first book published. Granted, self-publishing anyone can write a book and can self-publish it and can, you know, try and sell themselves. That's totally fine. But I tell my students all the time, if you have one book in you and that's it, then this is pointless.

00;25;31;21 - 00;26;03;18
Speaker 2
Why take all these classes? Why try to write book and think that that's it? Because writing a book takes so much time. When I first decided to write a book, it was more of a challenge it was like, If I can write a book, it means I can do anything because a book feels so impossible. So it's my challenge for myself to do the impossible and then when I finished that first book and I revised it and I queried it, I realized that it was not going to sell.

00;26;03;18 - 00;26;29;28
Speaker 2
It was just so bad reading other books around me, I was like, Oh my God, these books are amazing. Such well written books. My book was just so bad. And then I wrote another book and then I wrote another book, and then I learned how to write a book. And then I wrote another book, and I didn't get my agent till my sixth book because I then realized that I loved writing so much that I can do this for life.

00;26;29;28 - 00;26;50;28
Speaker 2
And I realized also that I had an infinite number of ideas and an infinite number of words in me, not just 100,000 for my first book. And then I realized that I could write for life that I wanted to write for life. I wanted I wanted to just keep going and not just to try and have that one blockbuster and then be done.

00;26;51;27 - 00;27;11;22
Speaker 2
So again, I tell my students recalibrate, reconfigure your brain and tell yourself that you have an unlimited number of words in you, that you don't just have one book in you, that if you only have one book in you, then why bother? You know, it's like somebody trying to start a business with $10,000 and they're like, It failed.

00;27;12;04 - 00;27;40;04
Speaker 2
Why should I try again? You know? So that's really at it. It's not as it's not as mean and offensive as it sounds I'd like to think that it's more constructive, and I'd like to think that authors, new authors, beginning authors, start to reconfigure how they think about writing a book. And it's not just writing a book, it's writing for the rest of their life.

00;27;40;27 - 00;28;07;28
Speaker 2
Then that they could potentially find some success later down the road. I know it sounded really offensive when I said it, but I say it all the time. I said all the time to people because writing is about learning. And I'm still learning. I'm still I still read books and I'm still impressed by like a turn, a figure of speech and a turn of phrase or something.

00;28;07;28 - 00;28;13;03
Speaker 2
And I'm like, Whoa, that's amazing. That's something new. I would like to be able to something like that.

00;28;13;21 - 00;28;24;10
Speaker 1
So you've been teaching creative writing for UCLA what have you learned through teaching other people how to write that has helped you writing yourself?

00;28;24;27 - 00;28;52;04
Speaker 2
Tenacity is something you can learn over time. Like a lot of my previous students, you know, obviously they were new writers or they were trying to improve their craft and some of them took several classes but I also feel like that's overkill. I don't think you need to take multiple classes to be good at writing. I think you just need to be tenacious about your writing.

00;28;52;04 - 00;29;23;18
Speaker 2
I think you need to read a lot and just write when you're physically able to write, when you're when you can find the time. I you know, I most of my students at full time jobs and they found it hard to write. And then when they do, I think, you know, that reminds me that I can be like that too, to be more tenacious in my writing.

00;29;25;11 - 00;29;53;17
Speaker 2
I still have a lot to learn, even though I've been writing since 2007. Oh my gosh, I've been writing 2007 long form stories, right? So it's, it's just been constant learning. And I tell my students that too. Like just keep learning. You don't have to keep taking courses, but the more you write, the more you learn because the more you write, the more you'll notice your mistakes and the more you critique each other's work.

00;29;53;26 - 00;30;15;21
Speaker 2
That's when you'll improve yourself because you'll you'll see what needs work in someone else's work. And you'll see that too in your own writing, like what would need work? And I tell my students, like, do not spend five years in a book, spend one year, because in five years you could write five books. So try as much as possible to write a book a year.

00;30;16;10 - 00;30;27;24
Speaker 2
That's one page a day, which is totally doable, and don't revise it for five years. Because again, you could write five books in five years and you would only get better every year.

00;30;28;01 - 00;30;33;23
Speaker 1
So since writing is for life for you, tell us anything about what you're working on next.

00;30;34;04 - 00;31;04;17
Speaker 2
I can't decide if it's a raw romance, a romcom, a drama, but it's it's about these two guys who meet one can hear other people's heartbeats and so he's a very, very successful attorney because you can tell when someone's lying and all that. And then he meets this guy who doesn't have a heartbeat and so he's trying to figure out what's this guy's story?

00;31;04;27 - 00;31;31;27
Speaker 2
And the guy has a heart condition and is suing this hospital. All for this life saving surgery that he needs. And so he helps this guy out in order to unravel the mystery of why he can I hear this one person's heartbeat. But yeah, I can't decide yet if it's a romance, a romcom or a drama. Um, I'll leave that up to my agent.

00;31;31;27 - 00;31;35;23
Speaker 2
I feel like I would love for it to be a romcom, but it sounds kind of.

00;31;35;23 - 00;31;37;07
Speaker 1
Serious and kind of sad.

00;31;37;07 - 00;31;41;10
Speaker 2
And kind of, I don't know, I do like genre blending, though.

00;31;41;24 - 00;31;42;25
Speaker 1
You're very good at that.

00;31;43;14 - 00;31;55;16
Speaker 2
I really do like genre blending, which led to, like, my first book. I was invited like a thriller panel a fancy panel and a romance panel and three different festivals. So I don't know, it might be another genre blending.

00;31;55;19 - 00;31;59;13
Speaker 1
You do have hints of the first book in no time, like now. How much fun.

00;31;59;14 - 00;32;00;08
Speaker 2
I do.

00;32;00;17 - 00;32;01;12
Speaker 1
Sneak in there.

00;32;02;06 - 00;32;09;03
Speaker 2
Oh my God. Yeah. And you read a book, right? He wrote a book about some. I forget what the book is about, but he mentioned.

00;32;09;06 - 00;32;13;29
Speaker 1
It's big enough that if you haven't read the first book, you wouldn't pick up on it. But if you have, then you're like.

00;32;14;12 - 00;32;18;24
Speaker 2
Oh, how meta but.

00;32;19;04 - 00;32;21;00
Speaker 1
He's not here building his own universe.

00;32;21;00 - 00;32;51;07
Speaker 2
I know I, I, I want to build my own universe. So my first book had a drunk genie, but was she a real genie or not? You can tell. But there was a history, right, of fantasy story. A third storyline in the book of this fantasy world. And so this one is scientific. So I kind of want to like, you know, have my own MCU so why.

00;32;51;07 - 00;32;54;06
Speaker 1
Not more heartbeats? What's your obsession with heartbeats?

00;32;55;10 - 00;33;19;14
Speaker 2
I don't know. Well, because my dad died of a heart attack and I don't know, it's it's a I mean, the heart it's a human battery. It keeps us going. So and it's also an amazing metaphor for love, right? So why not play with heart? Play with my heart.

00;33;19;20 - 00;33;20;13
Speaker 1
That's hilarious.

00;33;20;18 - 00;33;22;06
Speaker 2
Play with the eyes. Yeah.

00;33;23;23 - 00;33;25;13
Speaker 1
That's not going to go wrong.

00;33;25;23 - 00;33;26;10
Speaker 2
I know.

00;33;26;10 - 00;33;30;06
Speaker 1
I know this new story is kind of cool.

00;33;30;06 - 00;33;50;26
Speaker 2
Also because, like, he the main character can't find a reason to love anyone. He's too busy with work and all that. And his relationships in the past never worked. And so this guy is, like, super invested, but he's also, like, he might die at any time. So do I fall for him? Does he die at the end? Who knows?

00;33;51;10 - 00;33;54;12
Speaker 1
Is it going to be Adam Silvera and put it in the title?

00;33;55;13 - 00;33;58;18
Speaker 2
Uh, one of them dies at the end.

00;34;00;02 - 00;34;01;19
Speaker 1
They both die at the end.

00;34;01;20 - 00;34;04;26
Speaker 2
No, I can't do that. I don't want to kill my gaze.

00;34;05;18 - 00;34;07;11
Speaker 1
No, that's a whole trope in and of itself.

00;34;07;25 - 00;34;10;17
Speaker 2
I know I want to do that. I'd rather not.

00;34;10;29 - 00;34;15;12
Speaker 1
So the last question we always ask, because this is really hype, what books are you hyped about?

00;34;15;14 - 00;34;19;23
Speaker 2
Oh, I honestly, I've been so out of touch because I've not been on social media for months.

00;34;22;09 - 00;34;55;03
Speaker 2
But I am reading more fantasy now. For some reason, I want to write fantasy, but like I don't know how the thickness will like how my brain will handle the thickness I do have an idea in mind that I want to write, but I'm reading The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie. I hear it's amazing. I only just started books that are coming out that I'm hyped about.

00;34;55;03 - 00;35;05;19
Speaker 2
Again, I'm not on social media. I really I'm not on Tic TAC right now. I'm not on Instagram or Twitter anything, so I really don't know. So do you have recommendations?

00;35;05;23 - 00;35;07;00
Speaker 1
I have a whole website of.

00;35;07;09 - 00;35;08;22
Speaker 2
Oh my God, of course you do.

00;35;09;15 - 00;35;16;03
Speaker 1
Have you do. I don't earn the title. Literary Hype woman oh my. Not I. Big books, sir.

00;35;17;05 - 00;35;51;24
Speaker 2
I know, I know, I know. I should. I should figure out what I want to read when it comes out. But I also I also am torn about hyped up books because I feel like that kind of takes away from the edge cases that could be breakouts. Um, like, I know everyone loves the fourth wing, but I know a lot of people also don't but they read it because it was super hyped up.

00;35;51;24 - 00;36;16;18
Speaker 2
So I have the fourth wing and I kind of want to read it, but I'm also worried that if I read it and it was LA, I be torn because I have done that. I've read like hyped up books and like it was OK and then some were like amazing. Like I read Gone Girl and I was like, OK, I think, OK, so this is my take on it, right?

00;36;16;24 - 00;36;53;14
Speaker 2
Final thought. Like, I think accessibility is huge, right? Not everyone has a super expanded vocabulary. Like, you know, New York Times literary authors, and not everyone wants something that's super like well built, you know, accessibility and resemblance to everyday life is still pretty huge. And I think that's why a lot of these books do really well because it's super accessible to people who might not have touched the genre, you know, might have only touched Game of Thrones because of the TV show.

00;36;55;02 - 00;37;24;19
Speaker 2
But I love that Romanticism thing because sadly, romance is still not being taken seriously by a lot of people. And romance is like a gateway for fantasy readers. To get into romance, which I'm OK with, because straight men need to start reading romance because it's amazing so romance, see, you know, like yesterday I was on a thread on a Reddit thread and somebody was like, Qatar.

00;37;24;21 - 00;37;47;20
Speaker 2
So amazing. But I just don't understand it. And then somebody responded and said, I'm a straight guy. And I read Qatar, and the first one was amazing and blah, blah, and I was like, great straight guys reading female led fantasies, I hope become a huge thing. Like, I, I think, I think it's huge romance sees huge it's a gateway to romance.

00;37;47;20 - 00;37;52;23
Speaker 2
I hope. It's just that so many people pooh pooh it for stupid reasons.

00;37;53;01 - 00;38;06;15
Speaker 1
It's also reverse. As for women, it's a gateway into fantasy. Yeah. Just straight white man genre for so long. So it's interesting to see the blurring of that line and readers going back and forth between the two.

00;38;06;28 - 00;38;40;17
Speaker 2
And I hope there are more women writing, you know, publishing fantasies because of romance to see like epic hardcore fantasies because like my favorite series of all time is The Wheel of Time, those 14 books. And I wish there was something like that because the women in it were like super powerful. Like, he made sure the women were had a lot of time on the page and what just side characters like the women were actually super powerful beings in the story.

00;38;41;04 - 00;39;06;26
Speaker 2
So I love the wheel of Time because it was a universe that was led by women and men were the errant ones. So that was great, you know, so I want more of that because a lot of like, you know, straight white male fantasy is like man. So to all, all the women writers write those fantasies take over the world we're done with the patriarchy.

00;39;09;06 - 00;39;15;16
Speaker 2
Yeah, tear down the patriarchy. I will help from the inside. I will.

00;39;16;01 - 00;39;19;01
Speaker 1
So thank you so much for taking time to talk about your new. Thank you.

00;39;19;01 - 00;39;24;09
Speaker 2
Stephanie. So fun. And I hope we get to meet again in person.

00;39;27;01 - 00;39;41;27
Speaker 1
Thanks again to Nas for hanging out with me and taking time out of his day to talk about his book. No Time Like Now with a smidgen of discussion about the loophole. If you'd like to check it out, no time like now for yourself or the loophole. The links to both of those are in the show notes for you.

00;39;42;04 - 00;39;52;03
Speaker 1
If you enjoyed this conversation, don't forget to subscribe to the Literary Hype podcast. Give us some stars and share it with a friend. Thanks for listening to the Literary Hype podcast.