Today we are going to interview Manaal (also known as @fortressbooks on Instagram). At the age of 16, Manaal accomplished a significant milestone by publishing her first book, “The Heart Is A Museum”. This collection of poems showcased her unique perspective on various aspects of life, love, and the human experience. Her writing resonated with readers, capturing their hearts with its lyrical beauty and emotional depth. The interview was conducted by Reem, and during which Manaal answered a total of 20 questions, divided into three categories: personal, writing, and publishing.
We started with the personal questions, as we asked Manaal about how she got into writing. She said that she has always been an avid reader, that she got into reading at the age of seven and had begun writing poetry when she was ten. The young author also said that her writing journey had always been on and off and it has always been something that was just for herself, as Manaal only ever shared it with her family. She had always been quite attracted to the organized musical tone that poetry holds and she wanted to be able to compose something of the sort. When we asked Manaal about prose writing, she said that her highest goal was to publish a novel, seeing that she did enjoy writing prose but compared to poetry, it takes a lot more time for her. She had started countless projects but her motivation and interest in them was very inconsistent so she usually ended up abandoning them. She added that once she had published her poetry collection, the determination to work on her stories has come back and she’s been as consistent as she could with her projects. She admitted that it was a lot of work but she was willing to put in her all.
When we asked Manaal what motivates her to write, she said "I think just seeing all these other young authors and writers put their work out makes me feel like becoming an author is not an impossible goal. I find creators like Lancali, Aleena Rose, Jbryder and Dakota Warren really inspiring. Also, being part of bookstagram is very motivating because it helps me look at things from different perspectives.”
Speaking of the lovely community of Bookstagram and the people around us, we asked Manaal whether she caters to what readers want or that she follows her gut and writes the story the way she wants to. She said ”I don't think we should create art to simply please people. Sure, it can be an aspect in it, but I feel it shouldn't be the main focus. It takes away a bit of creative liberty. So yeah, I usually just write whatever I want but I try to do it in a way where people would be able to connect with it. To keep things fun, not giving the readers what they want is key so I think it's inherently more interesting to write what readers wouldn't expect.” Way to go, Manaal!
With this last question in the personal section, we moved to the writing section. We asked Manaal what was one of her favorite lines that she has ever written. She replied:”I feel like there's so many things I've written that i really really like but the first one that comes to mind is
"Somewhere between then and now, I became my own muse.” Another quote Manaal mentioned was "Power is corruption and divinity is dead. Relieve this torment and eat away my heart, whatever of it is left.""
Then we asked if she could tell her past writing self anything, what would it be? Manaal said ”It doesn’t have to be good. It just has to come from you.” The reason why she wasn’t consistent with her writing was because she was demotivated by how bad it was sometimes. She has always set really high expectations and when she couldn’t deliver, she immediately thought of herself as a failure and avoided writing until she couldn’t. She explained that now, she has come to terms with that and she is not letting it stop her, that every writer needs to be terrible first to become great.
When asked whether she hid secrets in her books only a few people would notice. Manaal answered ”I would say...yes but only people who know me personally like family and friends would get it. There are some very pointedly articulated verses in my book that are about certain people in my life. They seem vague but for people who know me, it is quite clear.” When we asked her about how she handled criticism. She said that she did very well, and that her father was her biggest critic and that he’s set her up to be able to take it professionally and not personally, that he’s very blunt about his criticisms and that it felt hurtful in the beginning but you’ve got to toughen yourself up and be open minded to it. She added that you can’t please everyone after all, and positive criticism is always appreciated.
The next question was whether or not Manaal considered using a pseudonym. She said that Manaal was actually her middle name and that she never really used it for anything else, that it was a poetic and beautiful name and that she spent a lot of time considering other pen names but Manaal had been the only one that felt right so she went with it. Manaal means attainment or achievement and it was like a sign to her, it was perfect. That was so inspiring!
When asked about the way she did research for her books and how long she spent researching, Manaal explained that she was currently working on a historical fiction project, and it was not going to be done any time soon, and she’s been researching by watching documentaries and reading up as much as she could. As for poetry, she has taken a short masterclass on how she could write better and more feelingly. She added that her research for that was just reading poetry by her favorite poets: W.B. Yeats, Emily Bronte, Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman, etc. She said that she also tries to improve her vocabulary and work on different rhyming schemes through that; instead of looking at them as a reader she did so as a writer and analyzed them.
We asked Manaal what and how she edited things out of her book. She responded that there were some things that felt too personal, mostly poetry books, that she cut out. As for prose-info dump, she edited some things out and rewrote it in a more compelling way, introducing it to the reader more gradually. When we asked Manaal about how she selected names for her characters, she replied that she had a document where she wrote down interesting names she found,either in real life or online, and just pulled it whenever she needed to. She added that sometimes when she needed to write characters that die painful deaths she chose names that are similar to the people that wronged her. Reem mentioned that Sabaa Tahir did the same but with villains.
The following question was about something almost all writers go through: what to do when she got stuck between scenes for example, one has two scene ideas but they’re not sure how to connect them or how to write the in between). She replied”How I personally combat this is by creating a whole new problem that would tie scene A and B together. If I'm unable to do even that, I switch the character POV to a random side character who is doing their own thing and lands into the mess of Scene A and B. It leads to confusion. And confusion leads to a solution. If nothing works, I scrap these scenes and start something new”
Lastly we asked Manaal about publishing. The first question was about the best way to market one’s book. She said"The fastest and most foolproof method is word of mouth. Being annoyingly open about it to family and friends and getting them to spread the word is the easiest way of marketing. Also, being open about your journey on social media especially TikTok and Instagram is very very important because that is where one will find their target audience. Social media is our doorway into discovery so we should use it to our advantage.”
When asked about her experience with publishing, Manaal replied ”Self publishing appeared simple and direct but there's a lot that goes into it. Writing the book was the easiest part and I expected publishing to be smooth sailing too but there were a lot of obstacles in my way. I struggled for months when it came to my book cover. As a minor, there were legal processes that weren't possible or overly complicated for me and on the other aspect when I did hire people, I didn't feel taken seriously. There was a very long delay for the cover and my last resort was to do it myself and I did. I felt like for a lot of it I had to depend on myself and do everything, which I wish wasn't the case. Hopefully, in the future, it will become smoother."
When asked whether publishing her first book changed her perspective on how she’ll write/pursue a story in the future or not, Manaal said "Definitely. I was very confused and overwhelmed with the whole procedure initially but now I'm confident that for my next book, I know how to tackle things in a time-efficient and overall easier manner. For one, my writing style is developing more and I understand my audience way better now. I also finally understand how I can devise a proper marketing strategy for the next book.”
We asked Manaal "Was there anything about the publishing process that was easier than you thought it would be? What about harder?" Manaal explained that the publishing of her ebook was a lot harder than she had expected it to be, it dragged on and on for weeks which she really wasn't expecting it to. Publishing to kindle unlimited was a surprisingly taxing process. As for easier, she expected getting an ISBN for her book to be really hard but it was actually quite easy. Amazon gives authors a free one and when she did buy a separate one for the different edition, she got it in less than 3 days.
The following question was about how Manaal felt now that her book was out in the world. She said "It is a bit strange sometimes because it's completely out of my control now. I can't tweak that one poem or change that one title anymore but I'm very happy with the response I'm getting from it. My poems have really touched people and to know what your writing moved someone or provided someone comfort or solace is just absolutely amazing. I feel very blessed."
Last but not least, we asked her about what message she thinks all writers should hear. She replied " Your work is more than good enough. The goal might feel unachievable, it might feel too far, but all the effort and passion you put into it is worth it.Don't take away the chance of fulfilling your potential over fear. The world needs your work, someone somewhere needs your book."
We hope you enjoyed learning about Manaal’s story! It was really inspiring for us. You can check more author stories on our website!
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