Welcome to another writer feature! This interview is with Ashi Meel, a seventeen year old writer from India. She writes poetry, essays, articles, and she’s been writing since she was nine years old. Find her website here and her Instagram @nebulaaa__.
What is the most difficult part of writing for you? Why?
It is actually the aftermath of writing that I find most difficult. Once I’ve written something, I have to stop my self doubts and the worries that people won’t like my poems or they might fail to understand what I tried to convey. To overcome all these insecurities and just put my writings out there is where I struggle most of the time.
What are your favorite, and least favorite parts of writing?
My favourite part of writing is definitely the initial draft where I can pour in all my feelings without the fear of others reading it. I don’t make my poems, they make me. That is what I like about those initial spurts of inspiration which help me grasp my emotions, understand certain things better, and sometimes even look back at what I wrote and see how far I have come.
My least favourite part, however, is editing that draft and altering my real emotions to make them presentable to the world in a more relatable way. This is where I struggle most of the time and certain drafts don’t even make a fully edited and readable poem.
Describe your writing process from idea to finished draft
Most of the time, the finished draft comes out to be completely different from the idea that gave birth to it. While making the draft, I try to connect the dots between the points that I want to incorporate in the piece, but often one of these points wanders off to take the form of a different poem altogether.
What is something that, as a writer, you couldn’t live without?
Books. For me the more I read, the more I write. Reading just helps me get inspiration and see things in a different way, it opens so many doors of imagination. If it weren’t for reading many books and poetries, I wouldn’t be who I am as a writer or a person. Believe it or not, relatable fictional characters and their stories have shaped me.
Who is your favorite author? How have they affected your writing?
Nikita Gill is my favourite poet, and her style of writing has in some ways affected mine. She writes about power, strength, feminism, healing and most of her poems, even when dealing with grave issues radiate positivity. I try to do the same as well, to incorporate hope and end my writings with optimism, or a better understanding about a certain issue or a question which helps to leave a mark in the hearts of the readers, or at least I hope.
What is writing advice you often hear that you believe to be false? Why?
Firstly, to write according to the liking of your audience. I feel like altering your style of writing to target a particular audience holds you back from your real potential. Instead one should write what makes them happy and their audience will find them.
Another piece of advice that at least doesn’t work for me is writing even when you don’t feel like. I do believe that the more you write, the better you become as a writer. But there are times when I need a break and if I keep on writing, it wouldn’t be something that I love doing, rather something that I have to do. And the worst thing that could happen to a writer is when they start to hate the process. A break just helps me miss writing for sometime and when I start doing it again, I feel happier, relaxed and guilt free.
What do you want readers to take away from your writing?
As a reader myself, I love when certain writings affect me in some way, and that is what I want my audience to take from me as well. At first I started writing because it made me happy but since I have made my poems public, I always love when my writings are relatable to people and they can take some inspiration or positivity from them. I believe in writing something that I myself would like to read. And words that make you feel understood, represented and give you hope, not just stay longer with you, but also make an invisible connection between the reader and the writer. And as a writer, I want people to feel connected to my words and to me.
Big thanks to Ashi for an amazing interview! If you would like to be interviewed for my blog, send me a message on Instagram @elizarkent.