Self Portrait
by Qaisra Shahraz

Qaisra Shahraz

I am in the thick of it - going through the rite of passage like thousands of other writers before me. Since the publication of my first novel The Holy Woman, life has been full of triumphs, agonies and paradoxes. Wonderful though the publication process is - it is still an onslaught on one's personal life. One is never the same again.

I love the writing part but have always been ambivalent about the package that comes with it. The transition from sheer anonymity to being thrust into the public arena, means that paradoxically whilst wanting to step back you keep on stepping forward. In fact there is no going back - just on and on.

Six months before the publication I began to get cold feet. It wasn't the hard work; I shied away from, but the loss of privacy and control over one's life. I counted down the days not with excitement but with some sadness, savouring my life as it was. It was exactly as I predicted. Whilst embracing a writer's personae and actively engaging in the machinery of publicity and promotion, one battles for personal survival.

I have always had two careers, in education (teaching, training, inspecting colleges for ALI and Ofsted) and writing. Keeping two compartments in my head, wearing two hats and even having two surnames has become second nature to me. Now I am faced with an identity and a career crisis. Whilst before writing was a poor forgotten sister. Now the 'poor sister' is retaliating with a vengeance! Neatly beginning to brush aside a career built on hard work.

Six months after publication I am still weighed under its process - for the book will not sell itself. Always a hard worker, I am giving it my best shot. Life still hinges around networking, readings, phone calls, e-mails, photocopying and posting. Despite becoming a slave to the book, domestic life and its demands still continue. My three sons' schoolwork has to be supervised; family events attended, laundry sorted and the lost socks found. My family and friends have been really supportive.

My workplace is my haven. In a bid to cling onto normality I am bent on keeping a low profile. I pretend nothing has happened, whilst my head is stuffed with the events of my 'other' life. Ludicrous. It's like hiding a bulging pregnancy.

I don't want to go on carping about the negative side of this process, for there have been some wonderful and humbling moments - that one wants to pocket away for eternity. Foremost being a launch party at the House of Lords hosted by Lord Nazir Ahmed and attended by many distinguished guests such as Lord Melvyn Bragg and full window displays in some bookstores. I am humbly aware that the writer is in the hands of a host of people in the book industry - all having the power to make or break one's writing career.

Time has always been a precious commodity. Writing now, more than ever, remains a 'snatched activity' - sandwiched between a day job and the family. In the early years short fiction, feature writing and journalism dominated. Nowadays it is novel and script writing for television. I stumbled into screenwriting by chance. With a recently gained M.A. in scriptwriting from the University of Salford, there is nothing for it but to start writing scripts! Whether or not they will ever be transferred to the screen is another matter. The film industry is a different ball game. It is much easier getting a novel published than getting something on the cinema screen. In effect I am resigned never to see my full-length feature film based on The Holy Woman to see the light of day.

At the moment, as my publisher would say, I am 'sitting' on my second novel Typhoon, writing the first draft of my third novel whilst manically completing the thirteen-episode drama serial commissioned by Pakistani Television. I am writing it here in Manchester whilst it is being shot in Lahore.

Fond childhood memories of Pakistan, lovingly stored, have become my fertile ground of creativity. With very little literature about that part of the world, I wanted to introduce rural Pakistan to the western reader. All my three novels are set in Pakistan.

On a daily basis I am switching from chapters to episodes, descriptions to stage directions - its madness! I am worried in case my novel takes on the shape of a long series of scenes. My descriptions were never exhaustive to begin with and now they have become even leaner. Action, conflict and visual images dominate my head, as I carry scenes and snippets of dialogue all day long. Some I retain while others I lose. Saturday and Sunday mornings are the time for 'fresh' writing. Late evenings are for the 'fiddling' and redrafting bits. Long car journeys set my creative juices in full flow. I love living with my characters and the world they inhabit.

Anyone wishing to contact me and share their ideas and experiences they can contact me at qshahraz@hotmail.com.