Got a chance to talk with an author beyond the border, an author whose country shares the border with us.
He is very talented and the versatility of his writing prowess is astonishing in his debut book Damaged.
I am bringing here a candid conversation with author Muhammad Ali Samejo, he is a seasoned corporate professional, published novelist, and training and development facilitator specializing in corporate skills training. He’s the author of two works of fiction titled “Legends Of Karachi” and “Damaged”. Although he published his second novel years ago, today we only talked about Damaged.
So without further ado lets know about this corporate skill educator turned author Samejo-
Mili – Can you tell us a bit about yourself and your background as a writer, when you start writing?
I guess it all started when I changed careers from 10 years in corporate to teaching English and communication in 2016. That was when I got back into books after years and my creative side kicked in. Before this, I’d only written some blogs with my observations and the thought of becoming an author was something completely alien to me till a new friend pointed it out. In a way, it’s a creative streak I may have taken from my father who was a veteran television director for 30 years at Pakistan Television (PTV) where he made TV dramas focusing on all kinds of domestic and social issues.
Mili – What motivated you to write the book Damaged, a short story collection and not any full-length novel? any Eureka moment? Or someone inspired you to write short stories?
Well, funnily enough, ‘Damaged’ came out completely by accident and, I’m a little embarrassed to admit it, boredom. I had spent about a year writing my first book, ‘Legends Of Karachi’ and had shared some of it online with a local community of writers and readers who were enjoying it. They motivated me to write more, and I got a good chunk of LOK written that way, but at one point I felt I was losing direction. That’s when I experimented with some other write-ups, and yes I did hit a Eureka moment when I realized exactly how I’d write ‘Damaged’, i.e. in the form of conversations between just two people per story while including as much of a small world and time in the space of a short story.
Mili – What inspired the title – Damaged, Please elaborate to our readers who are yet to read this book 🙂
Even in LOK and another side project titled ‘The Darkly Tales’, my focus was to highlight the issues within society, including crime, violence, harassment, abuse, bullying, corruption, and the like. The first story, ‘Power’, shows what would happen when the victim of sexual assault has the opportunity to confront their rap-ist. More importantly, in the span of the conversation, I had to dig deep into both these characters and their psyches, motivations, and the effect any trauma had on one or both of them. Once I finished the story, I realized I could tell more about such incidents of different kinds of trauma and how they ended up tearing people off the path they were following and turning them into something different. However, I knew there had to be something that should make these stories stand out, hence the dark twists and the acts of revenge that only people impacted by trauma can do. Like I said in the book, it isn’t about what’s right anymore, but only what will give them release.
Mili – Do you prefer to outline your book beforehand? Please give us a quick short trip to your story. What themes or messages do you hope readers will take away from it?
It’s a little different. Yes, I do like to have an outline, but I don’t want to keep myself completely bound by one. Plus, whenever I come up with a story or book idea, I more or less know how it will begin and end. So ultimately, I’ve visualized what the final outcome is going to look like and all that is left is to make it happen. That strategy has seemed to work for me a lot more than religiously plotting the book, but it’s probably just me.
Mili – I can guess, seeing people, experiencing and then portraying them on paper isn’t an easy job, how do you elaborate on their nuances, it must be going through a lot of research, please share your research and writing journey with us.
How many days and hours have you invested in your research for writing such intense short stories?
One interesting thing about writers is that they tend to observe more than put themselves in a situation. In my case, if I’m going about my life, I have a keen eye for observing all that happens around me. What people do in traffic jams, how they negotiate with sales vendors, what they resort to when they’re desperate, and more; so much is on display if we all stop and look. It also provides writers a chance to conjure up their own stories about someone they’ve only seen for five seconds and assume something that borders on the realm of the fantastic.
Mili – How did you make balance while writing your character-driven stories and the special awareness message themes?
And the most important thing How do you even balance between your job and writer’s life 🙂
I firmly believe that people are a product of their circumstances and environment. They are pushed, driven, cajoled, tempted, and inspired to take each step in their lives with little to no concern about whether or not those actions will make them happy. Writing about social issues, for me, is impossible without mentioning the human impact. We see it each day with news reports and documentaries that look at people and how they cope with all kinds of problems, which is why I want readers to empathize with the characters and really put themselves in their shoes to understand just how hard life has been to them.
As for balancing my life, that’s quite tricky. I think what’s made it so much more interesting is my kids spending my writing time with me, trying to figure out what my mature-themed stories are all about. Not only that, if I even hint what my characters are about, they take it upon themselves to give me completely zany plotlines that make us all laugh. I guess it isn’t that hard to balance life with writing so long as you’re having fun doing it.
Mili – What moments or aspects of the writing process or any special character brought you the most satisfaction or joy? Please share with us your happiest moment in your creative work. And detested moment in writing. I mean any incidents that you was not wanted to write but after some thought you put it in.
A lot of my characters have a little bit of me in them, so writing those aspects of myself from someone else’s POV is always satisfying. It’s like roleplaying what I’d do if I were a feudal lord or a journalist, and then have fun writing it.
As for the times writing was hard, it’s when I have had to write about bad things happening to kids. Two incidents that took place in Pakistan, namely the abduction and murder of a little girl named Zainab and a malpractice incident at a hospital in which an infant named Namal was given an incorrect and lethal injection, have had a devastating impact on me. It’s been both heartbreaking and enraging to think and write about those incidents, where I’ve felt my soul crushed over what happened to those kids and being angry because there was nothing I could do. It doesn’t help that these two are just a drop in the ocean when it comes to all that is wrong in the world as there is plenty of misery for everyone.
Mili – How was your development journey as a writer? Do you have faced criticism?
Honestly, not a lot. Sure, I got some constructive criticism when it came to how I was laying out my stories and what I needed to do to give them more mass appeal, I felt that I needed to take my stories in a certain way. So while I’ve been grateful for any constructive criticism and have adapted some of it to my work, I’ve mostly followed my own path when it comes to storytelling.
Mili – Please share tell us what does your family and friends think of your writing? What was the reaction you received from your first reader? 🙂
From what I know, they’re quite happy about me being a published author. My kids are my biggest enthusiasts while I’ve carved out a niche audience for myself. The reviews for both ‘Damaged’ and ‘Legends Of Karachi’ have been stellar in ways I cannot express. Plus, like I mentioned before that my father was a director, and my aunt is a Sindhi literature author too, it didn’t come as a surprise to many in my family when I first got published.
Mili – Please share with us your top 5 favourite books, from any genre, be it nonfiction, fiction, history, Self-help, it can be everything.
Oh, that’s a tough one. I think my preferences keep changing over the years, but if I had to pick the all-time favorites:
- The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series by Douglas Adams, in fact, ANYTHING by him
- Moth Smoke by Mohsin Hameed
- The Five People You Meet In Heaven by Mitch Albom
- The Book Thief by Marcus Zuzak
- A Case of Exploding Mangoes by Muhammad Hanif
Mili – Your every story is different, your characters are dealing with various emotional transformations, they have layers, and there’s a hue of horror, would you elaborate on why the ambiance is unresting?
Haha, yes I’m probably guilty of not giving my characters a moment’s rest. They’re always in action, always looking over their shoulders, and rarely given a chance to relax. Even the quietest of moments is the calm before a storm. The trick, of course, is how to transition from a calm situation to a highly tense one and then to a high-stakes one at precisely the right moment, making it a challenge for writers that I hope I succeed at. Besides, I like keeping the readers on the edge of their seats so they are caught completely off-guard.
Mili – Do you enjoy writing various dimensional stories? Is it for one book or are you planning to explore more through other books?
Absolutely! Experimenting with genres and blending them to make something more grounded, logical, and believable is such a joy. I’d like for my writing to be clever and not completely far from reality. For instance, if I write something sci-fi, I’d like for it to come across as something that is very much possible considering today’s level of technology. There are certain genres I write better than others such as thriller, mystery, action, drama, and sci-fi, while some I still think I need more practice with such as romance and comedy.
And that’s a wrap on this awesome conversation with Muhammad Ali Samejo.
If you want to read this purchase from here
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