Interview with Author Kumail Kay Mayad

Interview with Author Kumail Kay Mayad

• Today we have a young author, but not only that, an author who picked up a book when he was young and then rewrote it and put it out.
• That, to me, is amazing because I've written some really crazy little books when I was young and they're never going to be published, ever.
• Thank you guys so much for tuning in.
• And we have Mayad.

Is that how you say, Mayad or Mayad?

• Mayad.
• Yeah, Mayad is on the show today.
• Mr.
• Mayad, thank you so much for being here.
• Thank you.
• Yeah, so like she said, I'm an aspiring author trying to, aspiring writer trying to make as many new books, trying to take stuff from the past and bring it now.
• Because like Yaya said, all of us have made books in the past.
• And I think turning it into something that you can see on the shelves is just really cool.
• So, thank you for having me.

- No problem.

• You started writing when you were young.
• Tell me about that.
• I think most kids just, especially back when we didn't have phones and stuff, of course, I'm in the new generation, so most kids nowadays have phones.
• But even with phones, there's still a lot of kids out there that use drawing apps and stuff.
• I personally use drawing apps.
• It's actually how I created the illustrations in this new version of my book.

- As a kid, I picked up drawing.

• At the start, I wasn't good at it, but most kids were still able to kind of create a storyline of images.
• Obviously the stories weren't great or anything.
• It was just usually stuff we saw on tv.
• For me, it's because I've always liked cartoons, tv shows, movies, and I think that's the thing I just like the most, being creative to make things, because sure, I like watching stuff and reading stuff, but I think I thought having my name on whatever I was making is just way better.
• So instead I tend to make stuff more than watch stuff now.
• But yeah, so I always liked drawing stuff.
• Art class was always my favorite in elementary school.
• And yeah, that's basically how I got into it.
• But not only that, but I always had access to colored pencils and stuff.
• I would always ask for that and birthdays and stuff.
• I never really wanted expensive shoes or clothes, anything like that.
• I just wanted to be able to draw and make stuff.
• I started off with just like the stapled paper, making like five folds of paper and then stapling it all together, like really short stories and stuff like that.
• But to me, that was just fun.
• So, yeah, that's how I started.
• That is so cool.

You know what I loved?

• The fact that I used to be able to glue paper together to make it thicker and then the little paper to go around it, to bind it.
• And then I used to do that.
• Yeah, it was a mess.
• No, but that was the charm of it.
• Yeah, the fun part, because looking back now, I actually have something with me.
• Let's see.
• I have a book right here.
• It's just something I made when I was like five years old or something.
• And it's just like, cool.
• You can see the staples.
• I mean, it wasn't anything like any great illustrations or anything, but I still remember making it.
• I still remember getting the ideas and stuff and it was just really fun for me.
• So it's really nice looking back on it.
• But now that you actually have access to printing and publishing, self publishing especially, it's really easy to get your name out there and stuff like that.
• So I'm really excited to see where it goes.
• Me too.
• Me too.

so you took a book that you wrote when you were how old?

• And now it's published.
• Yeah.
• So I took a book I wrote when I was like nine.
• It's been like around six, seven years.
• And at first I published it with this other company and that was just the old version.
• So basically what they did was just, I just scanned all the old drawings and everything.
• I didn't make any changes.
• The only thing I did was obviously I had to write it in text because it was my handwriting from when I was nine.
• So it wasn't the best.
• So I had to make it clearer for the publishing company.
• But it wasn't until, I think, the summer, no, before the summer of this year where I was like, because I like the story so much that I wanted to make it with new illustrations, kind of re envision it because I believed it could be better, especially with the skills I've gained.
• So I was like, so I'll make new illustrations for it.
• I'll change the story up a little bit and try to find a publishing company that likes the idea.
• And that's what I did.
• So here we are now.
• That's so cool.
• So, Mr.

Delwood, what is this book?

• I mean, since this is children's book, I wanted to kind of use children's book I've seen, and it's inspired by a lot of different things, fairy tales, poems.
• But it's still supposed to be like a realistic story.
• But basically what it's about is a man named Mr.
• Delwood, but most people call him Mr.
• Dell.
• And he just loves how he's a really outgoing, energetic person.
• He's caring.
• He has a lot of friends.
• He lives in a small city, so the community all knows him.
• But what basically happens is there's something that happens in his life, and it kind of changes things for the worse, because we all have those moments where one little small change makes things a lot more annoying to deal with and stuff like that.
• So it's basically showing how to overcome some small changes and deal with the small annoying things, small obstacles, and it's not anything too in depth or hard to know.
• I try to make it as easy to understand for kids because these were the type of books I was reading.
• So if I could understand that, kids nowadays definitely could.
• But, yeah, the main inspiration I got from it was this book I read in second grade, which I can't remember what it was called, but it was something about this guy.
• He actually looks similar to the character I have in my book, Mr.
• Delwood.
• But the difference is that he's like a hot dog man and he's selling hot dogs to these kids.

Right?

• And the themes were similar.
• It was about kind of giving back to the community and being nice to others, because that's also another theme presented in my story near the end of it.
• And I just really like those themes because I think every children should know about that.
• Every kid should read about that.
• And I wanted to kind of use these new illustrations to make it more apparent, because with the old illustrations, it was kind of just chicken scratch.
• You couldn't really tell what was happening.
• But this time you can definitely see the vision I was going for.
• So, yeah, that's where I got then the idea for remaking it.
• That is so cool, though.
• That is really super cool.

When we look back at authors and different people and the influences, what is going to be the influence that you're going to grab for, for the next book that you're about to do?

• Because I know as a writer, you just can't stop there to keep going.
• So you have to tell me what's next.
• Right now, I'm actually writing something right now.
• It's not for children, but it's not like anything gruesome or anything.
• It's more aimed at teenager stuff, more about bettering yourself, stuff like that.
• And I guess you can label as a fitness book, but right now I'm actually really deep into that one.
• It's going to be way longer than this because this is just a short story for children.
• But this one, so far, it's reaching 200 pages.
• But right now I'm just editing because I like to edit as I go.
• I don't want to do it all after I'm done because it just feels like too much of a hassle.
• So I just edit as I go.
• So that's why it's taking a little longer.
• But I've been working on it for a couple of months, and I think this one is definitely going to be easy to promote.
• That's what I'll say, but it's definitely going to be a more engaging, more.
• Well, it depends on the reader, but it's going to be easier to relate to because this is definitely, like a lot of the things addressed in the book are definitely a lot of issues going on right now, and especially with social media and everything out.
• It tells a story from a person, not a real person, not me either.
• But it tells a person, like, anybody can fill their shoes, anybody can fit themselves into.
• And it's really relatable, I guess, is how I would describe it.
• So I'm excited to.
• To see how it finishes.
• Wow, me too.
• When I was younger, I never thought that I would be doing grown up stuff.
• Yeah, but forget it.

Grown up stuff?

You kidding me?

• It's like.
• But as I got older, I understood that grown up stuff really was a lot of fun.

What kind of gratification do you get from authoring books?

• Well, I mean, like I said, anytime I watched or read anything, it would seem so cool to have something under my name.
• So when I publish these books, it feels like every book that's ever been published, even when I publish books, I think any book I publish, it can't be bad, because think about it.
• To get to a point, to publish a book, even if it's self publishing, you have to edit it.
• You have to do so much to it.
• For me, I don't know how it is for other people, but for me, if I start a book, and I've started many books, there's actually a book that was around 200 pages that I thought just turned bad near the end, and I just scrapped the whole thing entirely.
• And the thing about that was that it wasn't that it was bad near the start.
• It was because one little mishap kind of made me lose motivation to write the rest.
• Right.
• And that's the thing with writing, is that if I can publish a book, then it's a success in my eyes.
• But the good thing about it is that I can go back at any time to that book, like I mentioned, and I can change it and I can rewrite it and I can publish it.
• So I think the gratification I get is just the feeling of success and also getting a message out there, because I actually like to write in multiple different genres.
• I don't really want to limit myself.
• I mean, one day I could be writing a mystery, one day I could be writing horror.
• It just depends on the day and the mood.
• And I also don't really want to really try to pressure myself to finish something all in one go.
• I just spread things out.
• Whatever I'm feeling, I write it.
• And one day I might come back to it, I might not.
• So that's kind of how I go.
• And that's the feeling I like.
• When I finally finish something, I know where I started as well.
• Awesome.

So do you have any advice for the young writers out there that are struggling with moving forward in their writing capabilities?

I mean, do you have to be perfect?

• No.
• That's the thing.
• A lot of young authors try to think they believe that you got to make, especially nowadays, because with the threat of things like AI and all these other things, people believe everything has to be perfect because it can be compared to things that not even humans make.
• And people are now saying that this is better.
• Right.
• So that's the really concerning thing about, is that people think that you have to, especially on your first try.
• People think you have to give a really good first impression.
• Although I believe the first impression thing is true, I don't think you have to go all out, because the real good thing about publishing and making your own story is to show who you are as an author.
• So as long as you're unique, you have some original story, original idea to show, then I think anybody could like it.
• Because for me, this book, I wouldn't say it was something I wrote when I was in elementary school.
• So if I was able to take that and transform it to something that's relevant today, then you're pretty much able to make anything.
• And I wouldn't call any book perfect because, of course, you can go through it.
• There's probably some grammatical errors and stuff like that.
• But at the end of the day, the main important thing is that you're getting a message and you're showing who you are as a writer, who you are as an illustrator.
• And that's the most important thing to me.
• And for anyone who's trying to be, like, an aspiring writer, aspiring author, I think inspiration is making a lot of people they don't want to take from things.
• They think it's like ripping off stuff.
• They don't really like being called out for that.
• But for me, actually, it's a good thing because if you're able to make a connection to something really popular or a really famous book, I think that's actually a compliment because think about it.
• Imagine someone saying, oh, you remind me of Shakespeare something, or your writing is exactly like Shakespeare.
• That would be a good thing in my eyes.
• So I don't know.
• I think people should lean into inspiration more.
• They should take inspiration from a lot of things.
• And that's the main way people write.
• You can't expect to have all original ideas.
• I mean, I don't think anybody does.
• So just look around you and find what you like and just create something using all that around you.
• That's my main.
• Wow.
• Wow, that is so cool.
• Mr.
• Mayad.
• Thank you so much.

Is it Mayad or Mayad?

• I always get it wrong.
• There's so many different ways to say it, right.

So Mayad, right?

• Yeah.
• Awesome.
• Thank you so much for being on the show.
• We have Mr.
• Delwood up on Amazon.
• You can get that on the Amazon bookstore.
• You can type it into Amazon.com.
• You can go to Yay Diamonds Book club and get it.

Where else can people find you?

• You can find me on Instagram at kind of funny username Mr.
• Ducko.
• I will probably be rebranding soon.
• You can also find the book on Barnes and Noble.
• It's also available for digital purchase on Kindle Publishing.
• And also, it's also available in two different formats as of right now, paperback and hardcover.
• So, yeah, it awesome.
• Well, thank you so much for being on the show.
• And thank you guys so much for tuning in.
• Don't forget to dare to be different.
• And until next time, guys, bye.