Check it out here: http://www.shereen-yap.com/c-h-a-r-l-i-eCHARLIE is your first published book. Do you plan for any follow ups or additional books?
I never really thought about it to be honest, have been just concentrating on writing and painting. It’s strange, even CHARLIE was spontaneous, one day I decided that I wanted to get my works out there and it just happened! Ever since CHARLIE came out earlier this year, I have still continued writing and sharing these stories – but at the moment, I do not have plans for a second book. Quite a number of people have been asking me this – I may decide to one day!
What do you think makes a great story?
It’s when people are able to draw out emotions or thoughts of something completely different to what say myself as an author intended. That’s what makes not just a good, a great story. One that is fully capable of invoking passion, emotion in others without knowing them or their story and they in turn connect with it.
What inspired you when writing CHARLIE?
The poem itself - It started off as a way to vent out every day frustrations and over time I found I saw things differently. A conversation with someone could turn into a must for a short story, someone’s actions could spark another story or walking past landscapes or say, broken shards of glass on the ground could turn into a fabrication. It’s really hard for me to say specifically one thing of that inspired me, because CHARLIE was inspired and I still continue to be inspired by so many different things in every day life.
Now, the title – has it’s own story – one that I would say started from a conversation with a friend years ago, that led to, what I can say, the birth of a character named CHARLIE.
What are your ambitions for your writing career? Full time? Part time?
I honestly don’t know. I mentioned before people have been asking if there will be another book, another CHARLIE, Part 2 – and I am not sure – CHARLIE itself as a character is very much still alive and his story may yet write itself but I don’t really know whether I am going to dabble into this full time.
When did you decide to become a writer?
I started writing when I was really young but I never pursued that passion until know. One of my regrets was not keeping anything I had back then – I even had an entire novel written out when I was still in high school! For a period of time a few years ago, I started writing thought articles to go alongside my artworks – I felt then that each particular piece had a story to tell and perhaps while the articles were never really quite structured, it was really quite raw. I wanted to convey a message of hope.
When writing CHARLIE did anything stand out as particularly challenging?
CHARLIE as a character came into my life years before I dabbled with poetry and each piece or piece was written out. It was the way that it was written, I had given no thought to even coming close to publication that I just wrote without a particular theme – it was just disjointed everyday thoughts. The challenge then when I had to put together a manuscript was to come up with a theme to gel it all together. And I finally came up with the use for CHARLIE. There is a little blurb on the back cover of the book to explain the disjointedness within it but what I am hoping for is that, readers will see this – this is after all written not from a completely light source, but through the eyes of someone struggling in today’s world. I personally thought the disjointedness was kind of ironic.
How did you come up with the story of CHARLIE?
As I mentioned before, CHARLIE as a title came after everything individually was written and CHARLIE itself, was a character born from a conversation. So it wasn’t completely a story. I tend to keep my stories very raw, very honest. If you’d ask me would I be afraid of people reading this and seeing me with view that’s less than ideal – yes – that thought had crossed my mind, particularly with people who are close to me, but I won’t let that stop me from sharing my stories.
What do you like to do when not writing and creating these books?
I’d paint – always thinking of what my next piece is going to be – making note of anything that comes to mind, I want to keep any creative thought, I mean I wouldn’t know if I’d perhaps use it somewhere down the track. Other than this, some days, doing nothing would seem like a very good idea, catching up with friends – all the normal everyday stuff!
I definitely don’t just stick to one genre to work with, readers are definitely more than welcome to check out my works on my website shereen-yap.com. I’m quite active on Instagram too @syaptz. Would love to hear from the readers.