r/books • u/AusmaKhan AMA Author • Oct 05 '20
ama 2pm Hi! I’m Ausma Zehanat Khan, author of THE BLADEBONE, (I love weaponry and this one’s a doozy), the epic conclusion to the fantasy quest that began in The Bloodprint, where women warriors gear up to topple a ruthless patriarchy in a final, blazing confrontation. (I may be working something out.) AMA
I write the Khorasan Archives fantasy series and the Esa Khattak/Rachel Getty crime series. My fantasy series is set along the Silk Road in parts of Central Asia and the Middle East. My family is from this part of the world, and I’ve been endlessly fascinated by my heritage, so I was thrilled to have the chance to weave it into The Bladebone. You can find Silk Road history, cultures and customs in all four books in my series. What I love most is that my scholar-warriors Arian and Sinnia use these traditions to empower the women of Khorasan. I’m passionate about magic, mystery, and women who stand up for themselves in the face of impossible odds. Also swordfights.
You can find me at http://www.ausmazehanatkhan.com, https://twitter.com/AusmaZehanat, at https://www.facebook.com/ausmazehanatkhan, https://www.instagram.com/azkhanbooks/?hl=en
I will be here to respond starting at 12 Noon MDT today, so please, ask me anything, including how to say my name! (It rhymes with Fuss-ma.) Thank you for all of the questions.
Proof: /img/qzneqojqmkq51.jpg
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u/Chtorrr Oct 05 '20
What were some of your favorite things to read as a kid?
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u/AusmaKhan Oct 05 '20 edited Oct 05 '20
As a young kid, I loved Doctor Who novels, any of Enid Blyton's mystery series but particularly The Valley of Adventure, From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler and Alfred Hitchcock and the Three Investigators. In my early teens I discovered Dune by Frank Herbert and Terry Brooks' Shannara novels. All great reads!
Editing this to add Elidor by Alan Garner. That book really woke me up.
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u/Silkkiuikku Oct 05 '20
Sounds like your work includes lots of planning. How much time do you spend planning, and how much time do you spend writing?
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u/AusmaKhan Oct 05 '20
You're right, there's a lot of planning and thinking involved before a book comes to the page. The book I'm working on now I've been thinking about for two decades. So when I was on a two books per year schedule, I would spend 4-6 months writing the book, but at least 6 months before that generally reading, researching and working out the form of the book. The last five years were intense and I needed more time for both than I actually had. In that 4-6 month writing period, I write 6 to 8 hours a day preferably, and not on weekends. In crunch time, that can expand to all weekends and 12 hours a day. Sometimes good things happen at that pace but it's not my preferred mode of writing.
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u/kermitdafrog567 Oct 05 '20
I heard you were a lawyer before (and I may have watched a YouTube video of yours haha) how did you become interested in law and how did you transition to writing books?
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u/AusmaKhan Oct 05 '20
Thank you for the question! For me, my interest in law was always about my interest in human rights, but in law school, those kinds of courses are pretty limited. It's all contracts and torts until you specialize, and I didn't enjoy that at all. So I practiced immigration and refugee law, I taught international human rights law for quite a while, and then I worked on all these little side projects where I could lend my voice. I transitioned out of law because we moved around a lot and I didn't want to keep taking Bar exams--and also I began to feel like there were other ways to speak about the issues that compelled me. I've been writing all my life on the side (and in law you write a lot too), so that drive was finally fulfilled when I committed myself to writing first Summer's Lease, and then The Unquiet Dead.
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u/ApprehensivePineCone Oct 06 '20
So many people don't realize how much reading and writing is inherent in law. I have a degree in world/latin american history with lots of law/politics thrown in, and it wasn't uncommon for us to be required to read a 500 page book or text over the weekend and then write a 25-page research paper on it by the end of the week. The profs did this because most history majors go on to study law, so they wanted to prep us for law school. The work load was insane, even crazier than the STEM workload for my other degree. Reading and writing boatloads in us history/law folks is almost a birthright. I haven't read any of your books yet, but they sound interesting and I'll be sure to check them out!
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u/summshaikh Oct 05 '20
Do you have an all time fave character to write? Like maybe they’re not your fave character in a general sense but you enjoy writing as them/about them to most
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u/Lkhan11 Oct 05 '20
Which of your characters is the most challenging to write?
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u/AusmaKhan Oct 05 '20
This is a really good question. I'm having to think about it. I suppose it's a toss-up between Rukh (the Black Khan/Dark Mage), and Ilea (the High Companion/Golden Mage.) Rukh because I wasn't quite sure at the beginning what side he was on and what game he was playing - that only became clear to me as the story began to unfold, and then I realized that the best thing about him is his ambivalence. Ilea was difficult to write too because I love women with power, but then there's that careful line you have to walk when that power runs amok. (Hmmm, kind of like we're seeing today.) So she became more interesting to me when I started to ask myself what are the limits of her power? And where will she draw the line in using it. The Bladebone is going to surprise readers in all kinds of ways, I hope!
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u/Doc55555 Oct 05 '20
What's the most embarrassing thing or story you can tell us about your brother?
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u/AusmaKhan Oct 05 '20
Haha! I have two brothers, so depends on which one, but here's one that captures them both. They once wanted to sleepover at a friend's to play Dungeons and Dragons, and they literally escaped through their upstairs bedroom window by tying a series of sheets together and climbing them down to the ground. I really, really admire that, lol!
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u/Revolutionary-Fact74 Oct 05 '20
How do you balance the creative side of writing with the slog of the writing process?
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u/thinker135 Oct 05 '20
Do you base characters off of people you have met/known in real life? Examples?? LOL
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u/thinker135 Oct 05 '20
When do we get to read more books by you? How do we make this happen??????
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u/Signal_Brain_3410 Oct 05 '20
The first two books in the series had a sort of a thundering pace, that maybe slowed a little in the Blue Eye. Was that intentional or just my perception? And when mapping out a multi book series do you take pacing into account and work to build to a crescendo in book 4? It's hard to believe the story will be completely wrapped up in the next book, so maybe we'll get side stories!
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u/thinker135 Oct 05 '20
Would you ever write a cookbook based on the places in your books?
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u/YFA13 Oct 05 '20
Has there any point while far along into writing any of your books that you completely decided to scrap a storyline/character? If so, how did you pivot and how strongly do you have to feel about doing it in order to follow through?
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u/thinker135 Oct 05 '20
If you could meet one person, past or present, who would it be?
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u/thirty_ Oct 05 '20
I'm so happy to see you do an AMA! I've enjoyed your Khattak/Getty books over the past few years and always want to read more scenes with the two of them. How do you usually plot or plan a mystery novel?