The following is a collection of questions provided by my readers and friends who have read RFSL.
Question: What made you write RFSL?
Miriiam Isa: Therapy. I was under immense emotional distress after finding out that my ex boyfriend had been playing games with me, yet again, that I needed to do something as an escape. Writing down my thoughts helped me vent out my pain.
Q: Did you ever thought of a storyline for the book right from the start?
MI: No, hardly. I was writing on a stream of consciousness basis, and I never even imagined that what I wrote would turn into a book.
Q: How did you come up with the headings?
MI: Those were added as markers at the very beginning of my writing. I had a huge problem. You see, I just pushed myself to write every time I recalled things I did in the past with my ex. And these memories came back to me at random. Therefore, I was writing disjointed pieces most times. It was hard to keep track of all the different stuff I'd written and thus I intentionally wrote headings related to places or certain events to help myself out.
Q: What you're saying is you had absolutely no control on the way the chapters shape up?
MI: Exactly! During the first few months of writing, I was basically writing down unconnected parts of the book. But little by little, the chapters started to take form. At one point, I thought I was going to end up with a collection of short stories. To my surprise, the end result turned out to be a book.
Q: Did you have any friends read your pieces as you were working on them?
MI: Yes. Whenever I felt like I'd written an interesting piece, I'd post some excerpts on my facebook account.
Q: And how did your friends react?
MI: They wanted to see more and they commented they liked the pieces! That was the time I knew that this writing thing is going to be enjoyable - because I could make other people have fun reading my work.
Q: How much of the book is fiction, and how much is real?
MI: A small portion of it is based on real life experiences. Of course it's a given that I've been to all the places I described in the book. Otherwise I couldn't write about such far flung locales like Hahei, Montagu, Buenos Aires. Most of the book is purely fiction, and that's why it's not called a memoir.
Q: It reads like one.
MI: Yes, it does. I think I subconsciously meant it to read like so. I've heard comments from some close friends that they couldn't even distinguish between what's true and what's not in the book. When I wrote, it felt like I was writing my journal. Truth be told, I hated writing journals when I was a teenager. I only did that for class assignments and even then, I wrote about non sentimental things, never about my personal life. Strangely, I enjoyed writing my 'journal' the second time around.
Q: And why is that?
MI: Because most of the things I wrote were purely make believe! I felt that I was exercising my license to be as creative as I possibly could. I really had a great time on top of feeling quite cathartic with the writing.
Q: You mentioned some parts of the book are based on real life experience. Give us an example, that is besides the travels you mentioned.
MI: Hmm, let's see...There was a rather scandalous sketch of me done by my ex.
Q: Ah! And your sister found out about it, and harassed you night and day, just like in the book?
MI: Unfortunately, none of my sisters knew about the sketch. What happened to me was even worse than the incidence when Lila(the main character's kid sister) discovered the sketch of Liz.
Q: So what happened?
MI: My mom found the sketch. And I was completely in hot soup! I hope my mom is not reading this now!
Q: How did you deal with that situation?
MI: Let's just say I gave a very good explanation to my mom. I can't repeat what I said to her here, just in case...
Q: Just in case?
MI: Just in case she has totally forgotten my real explanation so many years ago. Mothers can be hard on you, sometimes. And my mom, despite how lovely she is, is no exception.
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If you have any question on Rice, Fish, Squid and Lamb that you like Miriiam to answer, please email Miriiam at miriiam.isa@gmail.com
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