2015-05-13Staff Report 2 " WINDHOEK-Namibian young author, Monica Pinias, is ready to deliver her second book titled, Love, Sex and Flight Tickets before the end of this year. She speaks to Youth Corner’s Pinehas Nakaziko about her writing career, what she went through and what one is to expect from her up-coming book. What is the difference between your upcoming book and previous one? Unlike my previous book, Modern Relationship, my new offering is well done and spell checked more than ten times. My previous book was also a bit immature. I was excited, thus I ignored the important things like spell checks. But it is experience that taught me a lot, even though all my books sold out. What are your ambitions for your writing career? I want to write and write some more. I want every Namibian to be able to read my art and understand it. Hopefully in a few years’ time, people outside Africa can read it as well. Who inspired you to be a writer? Lol! let me say I don’t read that much, but I must say Planny Angala is a good writer. I read and like his type of arts. What genre is your second book? I don't think it has a category yet. It is unique, a genre only found in Namibia by Namibians and it is also fiction just like my first book. What draws you to this genre? The fact that I am able to combine different situations and put them all in one book in a way that it caters for different people. And not forget that there is no limit to it. When did you decide to become a writer? Back in 2008 when I was still in school. I ran a Magazine in which I wrote different stories. I sold the book at school and since then I knew writing was my thing. Why do you write? For me writing is a way of expressing myself. Sometimes I write to encourage, to motivate or simply just to share some ideas that was in my head. What made you decide to sit down and actually start something? The passion for writing Do you write full-time or part-time? As long as I am writing, it does not really matter. My writing doesn't really have timing, but to answer the question, yes writing pays the bills. Do you have a special time to write or how is your day structured? I write when my fingers start itching. That means something when something comes to my head and I need to let it out urgently. I always have a pen and a note pad in my bag just in case I think of something. Where do your ideas come from? I read some advice columns and I imagine those people's situations. Sometimes it is news around me. I wonder a lot, I wonder all the time. How do you think you have evolved creatively? A great deal I must say. So much I have advertising agencies coming to me to help adverts concepts for their clients. What is the hardest thing about writing? When people assume you are writing about specific individuals. Do you proofread/edit all your own books or do you get someone to do that for you? For the second book there is a line of people proofreading it . . . I refuse to make the same ""errors"" like I did last year. Who edited your book and how did you select him/her? It is still in the process of proof reading actually. And like I said it is a line of very amazing and intelligent people. Do you have any advice for other authors on how to market their books? It took me years of writing for free just to familiarise myself with the pressure of my target audiences, and in that way people got to know about me and how I write. Tell us a little about yourself and your background? I was born and raised in Walvis Bay by two amazing beings. I was raised with the boys and I was the only girl in the house with six guys. They treated me like I was one of them. I stayed in Walvis Bay all my life, travelling was rare unless it was really important that I be there. Like funerals or weddings. I saw my biological father twice . . . The day I met him and the day I buried him. I didn't have the perfect childhood but I had amazing people around me." 2015-05-13Staff Report 2
