Interview with Patricio Maya

PATRICIO X MAYA SOLIS was born in Quito, Ecuador, but moved to California at age 12.

He writes in both English and Spanish and his first book, walking around with Fonti and Bukovsky is made up of 21 essays grouped into sections about art, politics and autobiography.

His second book 80 miles per hour is a collection of 80 powerful poems written in Spanish. Registration Cruise is the author’s third book and his first published novel his upcoming book too much sweetie is a lyrical novel about Rennie a young Ecuadorian artist, trapped between a moneyed upbringing and his current downer note North American reality when he’s tense worldview all but collapses when he falls for a moo moo, an ambitious time a Seuss who loves him for all that he wants to leave behind.

Too much, sweetie, that strangest of things, essential novel of ideas is set to be published later this year under the Hollywood publisher Grady Miller books, which has also published the writers previous books.

So let’s chat a little bit to Patricio about how he became a writer where his inspiration comes from, and what he’s working towards for the future.

Well, welcome PATRICIO, thank you so much for joining me today.

Patricio Maya  03:09

Thank you Emma, for having me.

Emma Dhesi  03:11

Oh, pleasure. Now, I wonder if you could just tell us a little bit about your journey to writing. So you know, for example, did you always want to be a writer?

Patricio Maya  03:20

Hmm, not always. But, you know, if I go back in time, and I think about what a point when I’m, like, I’m going to be a writer, I think when I was 16, 16, reading, in a class in in English, in a Spanish class,

I read the 20th century, Hispanic masters workers from Argentina and Garcia Marquez. In particular, I was reading a novel by Garcia Marquez, the leaf storm, I guess that’s how they translated it to English.

It’s his first novel. And I thought, like, Oh my god, I really want to do something like this. But it wasn’t like so much like I wanted to do it, but I needed to accept

Of course, I get like most 16 year olds, I like the, the, the experience and the and the words and and so it took that was the beginning of the journey,

I want to say, but you know, it took a good 10 years or more after that, to really kind of start seeing myself as a writer.

Emma Dhesi  04:27

But it does take time, doesn’t it? Especially when you’re young, and you’re still trying to find your way and have a few life experiences that you’re confident enough to talk about?

Patricio Maya  04:36

Exactly. Yep.

Emma Dhesi  04:38

So did you go on to study writing? Or did you just kind of come into it more gradually?

Patricio Maya  04:44

I Well, I started reading a lot. You know, I started studying film.

That’s right. That’s my major was film. And I sort of, in a way I kind of lied to myself. I students outside of that film school one day and and I said You know, I’m gonna major in English for a little bit, just so that I can learn how to tell stories, you know, because I felt like I didn’t know how to tell a story.

A lot of my films were sort of experimental or something and then I said, Okay, I’m going to take that little break. And in that little break, turned into like a bachelor’s degree in English literature, and Master’s in art criticism, and so on.

Emma Dhesi  05:24

It’s funny how it’s always the scenic route that I speak to so many writers, and very few, take that direct path, most do other things in between and kind of end up finding themselves that their true calling those amusing.

That takes us a while. Yeah. We’re going to talk about your novel in a minute, because that’s your first published novel, but you’ve you have been previously published, but it’s more poetry and personal essay, I think, is that right?

Patricio Maya  05:51

Exactly, exactly. And, but all of that feeds into the novel, you know, looking at the novel, I think there’s a big sort of direct line fact that can trace the novel writing to a particular essay that I wrote when I was merely 20s.

Where I blurred the lines between narrative and essay. And that was the point of like, Oh, my God, that’s my voice.

And after that, it was like, yeah, this is my first published novel, but I have another novel that I wrote that will be published next year.

But you know, after that kind of very key moment, it just kind of blew up and I started writing, you know, non stop.

Emma Dhesi  06:35

It’s lovely. When that happens, the news gets you and you just go with it.

Patricio Maya  06:40

And then you read it, and people read it. And they say, like, oh, it sounds it doesn’t sound like you’re trying to be anyone else.

You know, it’s normal. When you’re young, I think to kind of emulate your heroes, you know, I’ve been through so many phases of trying to sound like Joan Didion trying to sound like, you know, Garcia marquez is trying to sound like these trends.

And then but you know, all of that feeds into your own life.

Voice. And once you have that, it’s a matter of, if I could tell you a quote, Joan Didion from I just mentioned, she said,

What is a novel, but a point of view? You know, so a point of so if you have that point of view that voice, then you just start telling the stories that that’s what your life kicks in, I think, you know, you’d have you’ve had experiences.

And most of all of us have experiences, right? So then, but once you have that angle, and that town, then it just takes off.

So you know, to beginning writers Don’t be patient because you’ll find it if you look for it carefully.

Good advice there. Yes. Don’t be impatient. I like it. So tell us about your novel that came out earlier this year and me if memory serves me, right, and I always say it wrong. Reaggeton Cruise is that right?

Patricio Maya  08:02

Think of reggae, reggae? Right. So reggae music is similar g o n which reggae reggaeton would be that kind of Caribbean Hispanic way of, you know, stating in that kind of music that we all know the Bob Marley music except with tones with that hip hop influences.

And like Latin partitions, reggaeton, reggaeton cruise.

Emma Dhesi  08:24

Reggaeton Cruise. Cool, I’ve got a little bit of education there and music. Good.

So I came out earlier this year, and I, you mentioned just a brief a little bit before that the novel idea came out of something you’ve previously written.

So how did that evolve and become into the novel? It is no, no, even you know, where did the idea of that original short piece come from?

Patricio Maya  08:46

Yeah. So I mean, there. Interestingly enough, I think there are a few episodes in the novel that kind of evolved from things that I’d done or seen or been into, you know, so like, take the main character of the novel, right, or one of the main characters Delfin Kish bear, who’s an indigenous man from the Andes region of Latin America, which has its own culture, its own sort of language events, right?

And he is based upon a real teenager who became famous, you know, in the world of YouTube, or essentially, most of you say his name a lot of people know, it’s still even, like, years after the fact, he posted a very kind of ridiculous and cringy song on YouTube, but like gloriously ridiculous, right?

So that people like you can forget it. And the cringy part is cream, like real cringy. Okay, like, I it’s, you know, I’ll send you the link, and then you’ll watch it. And well, this guy posted and I wanted to write something about that for a long time.

But I didn’t know how to because it was so committed, but I know I knew was serious at the same time. So that was floating my mind for years. Okay. One, two, I went to have a, I went to a barbecue with a friend who happened to with a friend of a friend.

And that that friend of a friend happened to be from Liberia, the country of Liberia, West Africa. Okay.

And we had a couple of drinks. And he’s, when people have a couple of drinks, they start sharing along. And he started sharing his life story, I guess he felt comfortable.

And, you know, I was enthralled because he’s shared a life story of pain and but also triumphs, you know, he was like a really young guy like 26, or something like that. And, you know, essentially, he said he was a war refugee.

And, you know, he Well, he was at the, at the camp, the, there, his mother fell ill, and there was no ambulance, you know, she drank some bad water. Now, this was based off a one conversation one night, but that really kind of shook me to the core. I tell them a little bit about my story. But I mostly what I did that night is I listen to him really carefully.

And I related everything that he said to my own migrant and immigrant experience. So suddenly, I had these experience of the Delfin is this kind of real reality, real based character? My own experience, obviously, right.

And then this experience of this other guy, who had been also through the immigrant situation, but completely different.

And yet, there were a lot of similarities. If you add to that, the fact that I’ve met a lot of people from all over the world, including a lot of Asian immigrants, here in California, I had all the whole sort of recipe. I just had to put it together.

And I think the subconscious did that. I didn’t do it, but it came up pretty well.

Emma Dhesi  11:59

Yeah, I heard a when I was watching another interview that you had done, you were saying that actually it was it was sort of lockdown and being confined, that gives you that space and that sort of breathing room to be able to just sit down and get the story done.

So it was quite an feels like maybe it was quite a cathartic process for you’ve been hanging on to this story about the YouTube star for so long.

And then the Viet right vehicle came along, and you went with it?

Interview with Patricio Maya

Patricio Maya  12:25

Yeah, there was something I think that once I found the tone of the novel, and I haven’t Well, I think I was lucky, or maybe having all of these things work, you know, a lot of just, they just form and clog you late inside of you.

And then you just come up, right. I think it’s good to respect that kind of mystery writing in a way.

But, but but the good, but you know, the physical actual things in terms of the lockdown, yeah, I was certainly home for a long time, right for hours, and not somebody who likes to stay at home too much. So like, I get really restless.

And then it just kind of found it, I found the tone, which was kind of comedic, but but also a little bit sarcastic. And I got it when I found it and then I just kind of it just sat down and I couldn’t do well, you couldn’t go out.

You know, I mean, you still were still in the pandemic, but it was like the worst of it.

So I did three or four hours a day, you know, to the point that I had no idea what was in a way, I had no idea what was going on, on outside of my literary bubble.

And when I woke up from that meeting, when I finished the first draft, it was like literally a shock because I started paying a lot more attention to the news and all of that. And it’s like the world had changed, you know?

Emma Dhesi  13:48

Yes, yes. That can happen to us as writers, isn’t it we can get just consumed by what’s going on in the here and now in front of us on our desk.

And then it’s quite shocked when you you do Lift your head up and see, yeah, everything’s changed the world is not not what it was when you started However, many months ago,

Patricio Maya  14:06

Because there’s so much momentum also behind a big project like dates, you know, like literally, emotional momentum. So you go forward, for months at a time completely.

Your life is solved in a way, you know, the problem that is life is solved, because you have a goal to just like when you go to school, you know, when people go to get a degree, they go to school for three, four or five years, whatever, and then they graduate.

And that’s when they enter the quote unquote, real world. Right? I think it’s the same way for writers, you know, we, like have this scope or this project. That’s the kind of school and then we graduate but then we have to re enter reality

Emma Dhesi  14:49

Is true. So true. So you’ve mentioned Great, so you’ve mentioned, you know, two of the characters that sort of spurred on the idea for this book and sort of helped bring it together.

But I know you have a large cast of characters that you deal with which in itself must have sort of posed a few technical conundrums for you.

But I wonder if you could just give us a little sort of synopsis of some of the main ones that you that we meet when we read the book.

Patricio Maya  15:21

Yeah, thanks. The book, the first thing I should say is that the novel is constructed as a series of narratives that are not necessarily first person narratives, but that are very limited in terms of point of view.

What does that mean that the, when I tell the story of, for example, because Arjun carn, who’s the Estonian video gamer, essentially kid 13 years old, or something like that? Who is like a video game sort of master already at that early age? Right?

The whole book is based upon his point of view, which is his at home, alone playing video games during like a summer break. Okay. And he’s at the computer and he’s with his cat, he goes to breakfast. So it’s very limited, right?

And then he goes to the Hollywood PC room in Estonia in Tallinn, and, you know, and then and then that’s the first chapter. And, you know, so everything is told from it’s not first person, but it’s limited in terms of scope.

Okay, he goes to the chat room, he goes to the, to the computer, and plays video games and, and talks to his friends, his teenagers do with the language, teenage teenagers, and even emoticons, you know, and all these things.

So, in a way, that’s so that’s the tone, and then the tone shifts.

When we go to the second chapter, for yet, we can call it a chapter, the second for the section, where you have another teenager, a slightly older teenagers, 16 years old, who is in the Andes region of South America, and his father passes away from a virus, the NdS virus, which is real, and it’s where the virus is real.

So like his father dies, and he is in the in the mountains, and essentially, he says, Okay, I want to move, right. And so the whole story is told from his perspective with these vocabulary, you know, with it, like a peppering of foreign terms in each chapter.

Okay. And then we’ve have different chapters, you know, we have the Furukawa sisters chapter, which is told from the point of view of three Japanese sisters, who are in America learning English, but who are also it’s a kind of extended vacation for them.

And so they’re all and they’re also well to do in terms of monetary income and all of that. So like, they are their reality of just the chapter. It’s like, takes on that kind of mask of, of that voice, and so on. There’s other there are other chapters.

There’s Liberian refugee who’s like very focused on working and making it the United States, there’s a former tennis player from Ecuador, who is sort of in between what to do after he has sort of not retired but got injured, and he can’t play tennis anymore.

So he’s there and, and that host of other characters. Yeah, they’re all intersect.

So they all come together on this cruise and intersect on the cruise towards the sort of, towards the we learn about them as they’re going through their life and as they make their way towards this cruise, and then that’s when they intersect.

Patricio Maya  18:49

Exactly, exactly. And and and there’s a kind of, there’s an there’s a structure that connects them all, in a way that there’s a structure that connects us all right.

So, like, in fact, we might be in different countries right? Both of us here, and then you have your own cultural and let’s say family background and so do I and linguistic right, but due to the superstructure, that is globalization and the contemporary capitalist world, we can interact and attend to technologies also right.

We can interact and speak to each other and communicate and we use English which is the world language, right? So in a way that the novel really reflects that reality.

You know, so that we have characters that are utterly different, but when they enter what I call it, the novel The core, meaning the core of the global world, of the of the very, sort of developed world, the United States, right.

The they entered that In a way, it’s kind of like an extended Disneyland. Right? Like they’re in America, we’ve entered America.

And so they are, they start interacting in ways, you know, and they can communicate.

And it’s kind of it’s funny in ways, but also very, very interesting how they’re able to sort of put their cultures behind in order to step into the global, the global culture, because there is a global culture.

Emma Dhesi  20:23

Yes, I see what you mean. Yes, because I think we have to have a degree of commonality, I guess, for us to be able to come together and communicate, we don’t give up everything, we still have our background and our, the culture that our parents gave us and their parents gave us but we need to maneuver in the modern world where there are people from where you were talking, before we started recording, for example, you were talking about Los Angeles, which is such a diverse group of of inhabitants.

And so in order for results, to live together and move together, there needs to be sort of compromise, I guess, along the way to fit to fit together in big cities.

Patricio Maya  21:03

Yeah, and you know, more and more. So the big cities of the world are becoming battling global cities, which is, you know, I’m not foolish enough to think that there’s no loss there.

There there is, the every gain also entails a loss, right? So there’s a gain of cosmopolitanism. But also, and I think there’s that that’s also themes of the one of the themes of the novel, particularly as it relates to the theme, but also their characters, that sense of what is gained and what is lost.

Right. So what is gain is they gain access to to they become sophisticated individuals, you know, through English, they are able people are able to communicate with each other and talk about popular culture, right. So like, I sometimes the line gets blurred between reality and fiction here.

But you know, I’m a teacher, and sometimes I asked my students, and I teach them music criticism class. And I asked them, I have students from all over the world, like literally all over the world, okay.

And I asked them, What can music Tell me like one or two famous singers or artists from your countries, right?

So Chinese students will say two or three famous Chinese singers, the Mexican students will do the same.

The Americans will not American, but mostly from all over the world, they will say, I don’t know, Saudi Arabia, they will say famous singers, right?

And then I say, how many of you know of at least one famous singer from another country, of all these singers or musicians that were mentioned? And literally most, like, 99.9%?

Don’t know, even one? Right? And then I say, Who knows? Michael Jackson, and everybody raises their hand. Right?

And it’s kind of obvious, right? And who knows, Justin Bieber was actually a comedian, you know, everybody racists and you know, and so on, we we know both of them.

Right? So that is the kind of common culture that people step into.

That is the sort of common money in a way for the common denominator for them to exchange ideas.

And there’s something to that in the No, but something is lost, lost, because they cannot talk about unless they explain who you know, so and so is then that that that is not does it translate?

Yeah. Gosh, very deep.

There’s lots of different layers, there is no, you could look at kind of almost every aspect of every culture and see where there is alignment, and also where there’s when it’s very different and very separate. Yeah, but I’m gonna move on.

Thank you. But I was intrigued, because you’re, you’re bilingual, you speak and you write in both Spanish and English.

And so I was wondering if that has any impact on the writing that you do?

You know, is Do you find that you’re drawn to certain types of stories or poetry when you’re thinking or reading or writing in Spanish?

And likewise, are you drawn to different things when English is the the language of choice?

Patricio Maya  24:08

Yeah. I suppose sometimes a lot of my English writing, stylistically, comes out as sort of a little Baroque, or perhaps the syntax gets a little sort of weird, you know, but but that is a reflection of my original Spanish.

So sometimes I don’t like get rid of that. But in fact, I emphasize that depending on the character, you know, and I find so in Spanish, you would say like, a car read, right? So that the the noun comes first and the adjectives come second.

So sometimes that sort of becomes part of my English, not exactly in that way, but in most subtle ways.

And so I think a lot of times like keep Kind of the spirit of Spanish in English. Whereas I, sometimes I do employ some English words in my Spanish writing in order to give it a kind of modern feel because my Spanish is a little formal for some reason, I think because I was a teenager in the United States.

And yeah, a child in Latin America. And a child of, you know, private schools and Catholic upbringing. And families where you couldn’t really say too many bad words or whatever suits, it’s, and then I became a teenager in Los Angeles, you know, free from all those sort of family and cultural influences.

And you know, so I’m much more comfortable with popular language, even, you know, cursing and all of that in English or in Spanish, I wouldn’t even go there.

So, you know, so those those two kind of tones are very present. But I do cross over.

Emma Dhesi  26:06

You do? Yeah. And so do you. Do you still write in Spanish

Patricio Maya  26:10

Yeah, I still write in Spanish. And I write a lot of poetry in Spanish. I think Spanish lence, I’m more comfortable writing poetry in Spanish and prose in English.

Emma Dhesi  26:20

Okay, that’s interesting. I wonder why that is what I mean, it’s just an innate draw to one or the other, maybe it’s

Patricio Maya  26:30

I think voice maybe, you know, poetry is more essential. I don’t know, that’s, that’s the right term, but it’s more sort of connected to the rhythms of the old country, you know, which I can’t let go of and just just step into the English world.

So you know, I keep those old rhythms very alive. In the employer tree, and and so the rhythms are more important than anything else in like poetry. In English. Yeah, rhythm is important. But you know, there’s also a lot of ideas and concepts.

Emma Dhesi  27:05

And you get to go back to Ecuador, much to sort of,

Patricio Maya  27:08

You know, there’s I have gone back, but it’s not something I do. I think, like a lot of it migrants immigrants, the possibly the returning.

Okay, so there was a who said this, I’m gonna mess up the who wrote the heart is a lonely Hunter.

Emma Dhesi  27:32

We don’t know.

Patricio Maya  27:34

Okay, I don’t know, either. But she said that she was a southern writer from from Carson mccullers. I say, bright colors. Yeah. So she, she’s, and this is not what I’m not necessarily what I’m going to say. It’s not necessarily how I feel.

But there’s an element of the kind of situation, she said, I go to the American South, in order to renew my sense of core. So she had moved to the north, right to New York or whatever, right.

And then she, she went to the American South to renew her sense of core, but only briefly, and then she went back to, you know, wherever she lived. So there’s no sense of horror for me in, in Ecuador.

But there’s, there’s, it’s almost too much, you know, so I’ve my sort of identity is forged as a as a sort of exile really. So you know, going back takes like, okay, a breather, okay, I’m going to go back. But that’s not to say that I don’t read the newspapers every day.

And, you know, from from there, and the poetry and everything, you know, so

Emma Dhesi  28:47

Keep that connection going. And so now, you not only do rights, but you also teach as well, as you’ve mentioned, and I wonder, how do you manage to balance that time between doing this sort of the nine to five day job, but also leaving enough?

Not just physical time, not just time time, but actually kind of brain space as well to have that creative side of your life, too? How do you manage that? Or is it each day as it comes?

Patricio Maya  29:17

Well, I’ll tell you what I don’t do. And I see it. And this is come off as a criticism of other like, teachers or educators. You know, I see that they kind of, there’s a very clear clears sort of wall or line between what they do in their creative life and the teaching.

To me, it’s just one right? So it literally I have a really hard time separating my literary or creative output from my teaching.

So there’s a so I’m, sometimes I think I’m a rather non structured teacher. So I just come into the classroom. I’ve been reading something Um, like, you guys got to read this, you know? And then I, we talk about that.

And the plus side of that is that I, you know, I really, if you ask me, Well, what is globalization? globalization is the ongoing process of world integration of the economic, cultural and political levels.

So that is some that definition is like, embedded in my head, right. And so I go to class, and that is something that I work into the the teaching, but it’s something that I’ve been thinking about for years, myself.

So there’s like, there’s really, I just, I just feed the classroom, from my readings, and from my work as a writer, and vice versa.

So I’m lucky enough that my, my bosses tend to be really sort of relaxed, and because I think they know that it’s going to really create a more fertile ground for my teaching.

Emma Dhesi  31:00

So that sounds good, that sounds like that gives you that. Good, you know that that sort of thinking that we do around our work.

And before we actually start waiting, there’s always kind of all this not mess, but it’s a soup of ideas and thoughts going on in our brain before we managed to put them on paper.

So it sounds like your, your teaching is a great time to be able to do that and even kind of possibly sound out the thoughts of your students and what works, what doesn’t, what’s a good idea what’s not, then there comes a time, especially for long form fiction, there comes a time where you have to sit down and write it.

So how does how do you balance that element of the writing life with your…

Patricio Maya  31:44

There’s no balance, like when write a good novel just just takes over?

You know, and then I managed his to live sort of, however, I you know, I go to work, I show up to work, but I might be just like, literally, as I step into the classroom, thinking about the plot, and then it’s like, Good morning, everybody.

Okay, what are we doing today?

You know, and I’m not saying that it sounds like a bad teacher, but sometimes, then I’m able to work all that I’ve been doing in ways that are, of course, it’s not this, I’m not gonna tell my students who they need to learn how to write an essay about my characters.

But you know, I might be able to tell them how to write, like rhythm, say, like, you have long sentences and short sentences, and that’s something that I’ve been working on.

So really, you know, in terms of time, yeah, you show up to work because you got to make money.

But to me, like, literally, this separation between the kind of work and the teaching is, it’s very, it’s not adult, it’s there, because it needs to be like a different activity. But at the end of the day, you know, writing is writing and reading is reading.

To me, what’s most important, more important than anything is being able to exercise work out.

So like, if I, if I have three things in my life, you know, earning an income so that I can eat and pay rent, and then the writing, which gives me role and a sense of structure, and, you know, kind of outlet for my imagination, and then exercise, I need to work out like hard, you know, and I think murakami, you know, is a runner, right at the Japanese author and I, when I read that he that he jogs and he runs in faith, I felt like, Oh, my God, I can relate so much to that.

Because, you know, to me, it’s just like, I don’t know how there’s that kind of idea that a lot of writers or intellectuals are sort of non physical, because to me, it’s just goes hand in hand, if I didn’t exercise, good.

If I didn’t go to the gym or play tennis or boxing, or that I wouldn’t be able to, like, you know, sit down in front of a computer.

Sort of I know you were late work, but but really, to me, that’s more of the balance, like the physical activity.

Emma Dhesi  34:03

Okay. Oh, interesting. Yeah, no, that’s good. No, and said that before. So that’s a really nice dynamic to bring into it.

And so what are you working on at the moment? what’s, what is, what are you thinking about when you’re in between classes?

Patricio Maya  34:17

Yes. So I’m thinking about a Spanish novella that I just started. And, because I think I’ve been reading a lot of ballads, you know, like the 100 pager kind of thing. I recently just read and taught the master.

It’s a master Margarita, the heart of a dog by Mikhail Boudicca, you know, and that’s like 100 pages long, and it’s divided into like, 10 chapters, which are like 10 pages each and it’s very funny, and it’s, and because I’ve written a lot of poetry in Spanish.

I thought, you know what, if I write a novella, a novel in Spanish is maybe too much of a challenge to go to just go to the narrative in Spanish, so my voice is completely different in Spanish. So anyway, I’m working on a novella.

And a lot of it is influenced by what I’m reading, which is the heart of a dog by bullet Cove and some stroke by Roberta Vanya, from Chile.

And they a moralist by Jean, Andre g gene, which is also a great book that I recommend, which are all very short, like about 100 pages long.

So I’m reading and writing and thinking about the fact that the novella and that particular like 10 chapters, 10 pages, it seems so it’s like already structured for you just have to like, fill in the words.

Emma Dhesi  35:40

It’s a nice round number a nice feel to it. Well, that’s fantastic.

Thank you. Just before we go, and I wonder if you could tell listeners where they can find out more about you and your work online.

Patricio Maya  35:51

Yeah. Okay. So I have a website. It’s Reggaetoncruise.net, reggaetoncruise.net, REGGAETONCRUISE.net

And you can find all about myself and the novel and my other work there.

You can also go on Amazon and just type up reggaeton cruise, and then it’ll or Patricio x Maya and it’ll, it’ll appear there.

Emma Dhesi  36:22

Fantastic. can find it easily. Well, Patricio, thank you so much for your time today. I really enjoyed chatting to you and getting to know more about your novel.

Patricio Maya  36:30

Thank you, Emma. I really enjoyed it. Thanks for your great questions.

Emma Dhesi  36:36

Well, thank you so much for joining me today. I hope you find that helpful and inspirational.

Now, don’t forget to come on over to facebook and join my group, turning readers into writers.

It is especially for you if you are a beginner writer who is looking to write their first novel.

If you join the group, you will also find a free cheat sheet.

Called three secret hacks to write with consistency.

So go to Emmadhesi.com/turning readers into writers. Hit join. Can’t wait to see you in there.

All right. Thank you. Bye bye.

• Navigating and co-writing with Autumn J Birt & Jesper Schmidt – EMMA DHESI
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• World building with Fantasy writer Stephanie BwaBwa – EMMA DHESI

Emma Dhesi

Emma writes women’s fiction. She began writing seriously while a stay at home mum with 3 pre-school children.

By changing her mindset, being consistent and developing confidence, Emma has gone from having a collection of handwritten notes to a fully written, edited and published novel.

Having experienced first-hand how writing changes lives, Emma now helps beginner writers find the time and confidence to write their first novel.