Meet Our Sellers – Fazleena Aziz

It has been some months since we started our marketplace Tapiroo.com and the good news is that there has been some progress.
We have set up a website and have even three sellers currently trading with us including yours truly.
So, in this article, we would like to introduce our sellers to our readers, and in fact, we aim to do little write-ups like this for every one of our sellers that trade with us in due course.
We will get the ball rolling with Kuala Lumpur based Fazleena Aziz, the other news editor for this website.
Fazleena had recently published her own picture book titled ‘Aidan takes on the Pandemic.’

This is her story:

1) What inspired you to write this book?

I have always wanted to write a book for children. After my son was born, I researched on books that would be good for babies. I was amazed how my son reacted to the book at such an early stage, so I wanted to write a book for him.

2) How long did it take you to write it?

It took about a year because I had several ideas and drafts. It is also not easy as you have to tone down the language and think visually. I used a lot of the conversations I had with my son, keeping that in my written notes. The pandemic created a new environment for children and I wanted them to have a better understanding of the whole scenario.

3) What are some of the processes that an author should take if they want to write a picture book?

Write all of your ideas down. You may have a bad one or a really good one but it is important to have ideas flowing. A writer needs tenacity because you can get easily distracted and lose interest. You have to keep at it. You have to plan and visualise the outcome. Tapping your creative juice can be hard but you cannot give up. You must think about your audience and anticipate how they may react.

4) Do you plan to write another book?

I want to make my book into a series. I have another two planned but it will depend on the response I get for my book. I want to base it on my son growing into this world but also something all other children can relate to.

5) Do authors need to know how to draw before they can write a picture book?

I think having some sketching done will do the writer good. There are many illustrators who can help visualise your ideas but some may need you to be able to relay to him/her how you want it to be. I am really bad at drawing but I was able to write the details of the picture, which is always helpful.