Thought it was Khayr✅

Q/A

Q: talk about yourself (who you are, where you're from, likes, dislikes, etc)

name's Mashie, from and based in Sokoto, Nigeria ☺️ and a medical doctor to be insha Allah. I'm very outspoken, i like cats, and I'm a foodie🤩. I dislike a lot of things, but one thing i hate the most is to be lied to. My hobbies comprises of travelling, cooking/baking, reading/writing poetry and stories. I draw too atimes. Making dresses is amongst one of my many hobbies too.

Q: How long you've been writing?

I've been writing for as long as I can remember. I've been writing since primary school days lmao. I use to tell my dad how much i like story telling and he'd say i should not worry we'll publish one of my books one day😂. Hope we get to tho. But anyways, then when we were not familiar with online writing platforms i used to write on paperbacks. I even added illustrations to my stories lol😄. My friends would always collect the book from me and read whatever i had added in the story I'm writing and they'd pass it around to other of our friends who have not read. Those good ol days😄

Q: writing history on Wattpad

I was introduced to Wattpad by a friend in 2018 and i joined immediately because i saw it as a means to facilitate my writing. Writing on paperback was really time consuming by the way. So. I can't remember the details(I'm very forgetful btw) but i know that for my primitive stories on Wattpad, the setting was not Nigeria. I was a fanatic of Indians then and tried to create stories set in India; somewhere I've never been to. It was really hard and people were not that interested. I managed to make 500 reads from my first story, but i got really discouraged with time and eventually took it down. After it, i can't remember any story I've been serious with. I'm planning to rewrite it though in a Nigerian setting and it's going to be the first book of the trilogy i talked about, so stay tuned 🌚

Q: how did you come up with TiWK?

The idea for TiWK came as a single sentence i wrote in my note and forgot about it. I wrote "a seventeen year old in an arranged marriage" and forgot about it. Until last year when my fav cousin sister's wedding came up and then, i was unable to go. I was really sad when i heard that she was getting married all of a sudden. I mean, i never saw it coming and to make things worse, i was unable to go for the wedding. That was what pushed me to actually start writing the story. Not that i was referring to my cousin sis as Khayr cause unlike Khayr she's doing very well with her husband even though it's an arranged marriage too, but i just wanted to create an illusional wedding... I thought; if i can't attend her wedding, why not imagine and write about it? So that was how i started this story

Q:what was going through your mind when you first began updating it?

Honestly i was just like mehh, it's just going to be a flop like all of the rest(won't get reads, won't be recognized etc) but i still posted it anyways. I talked with my friend who's also a writer on Wattpad and she adviced me to just go on. She's quite successful on Wattpad too and she told me this was how she started too. With low reads, but her persistence and frequent updates got her to where she is. So that motivated me greatly and i went ahead and continued with the updates.

Q:how did you come up with the story name

Actually I'm bad at forming story names.  I wanted to name it from Khayr to Fitna but it just didn't sit with me. I asked this same friend of mine -lady-imperfecti- , i gave her the story idea and asked her to give me a name. She gave me but i still didn't use it. Honestly i don't even know how I came up with the name Thought it was Khayr 🤩.  Perhaps because of Khayr's name? Her name's ummul Khayr and she thought her marriage would be Khayr like her name and it wasn't so?😂

Q:how did you bring about the characters and setting?

For the setting, i really wanted to set it in a place I'm super familiar with. So what better place than my very own town?🤩. As for the characters, i don't even know how I came up with them. Everything just progressed as i wrote more in the manuscript.

Q: who was your favorite character?

Sulaiman Hassan😂. Even though I basically created his character and back story, i was very moved by how much he suffered. But above all, i kinda like obsessive and delusional characters, so.

Q:character you're similar with...

Lol I'm not similar with any character in this story. But i can be emotional as Khayr, i can be delusional as Sul 😂, i can be bratty as Sakina, i can be conservative as Sabira and flamboyant as Khayr's Mom🤩🥺

Q: is it your character you incorporated in Hudah from the story

Nahhhhh. I'm nothing like Huda at all. Unlike her, I'm actually very outspoken. I decided to use my name for her because i wanted to be a hero lol😂 remember she was basically the one who saved Khayr. If she had not arrived that morning, Khayr would literally die.

Q: character you wish you could write more on...

Perhaps Samir or Aisha Hassan. I really like these two characters too.

Q: what was your favorite chapter of the story?

Lol i don't have a favorite chapter. I have favorite arcs. I really enjoyed the arc where Khayr became rebellious, from that confrontation chapter onwards.

Q: chapter you had most fun writing on?

A married couple🤣 you see that chapter ehn, i had fun making Khayr poison Sul with painkillers while he was busy thinking that she had forgiven him just like that. There's the Hear me out chapter too when Sul picked Sherry from the car park omg😂😂 i had fun writing it

Q: chapter that messed with your emotions?

Omg, that We Will Heal chapter...i really shed tears while writing it. There's a chapter that mentally weighed me down too, that Thought it was Khayr chapter.

Q:who do you think suffered the most from the story?

🤐

Q: hardships that you encountered while writing the story?

I had problems translating appropriately and also had problems connecting with certain characters like Abdul Hameed. His chapters just felt off, i don't know if I'm the only one who noticed.

Q: small details people might have missed from the story?

I kept hinting towards Sul's past. I even highlighted the Laya necklace in one of the initial chapters, but no one noticed lol😃, y'all are too focused on Khayr🌚🌚

Q: when will we hear from you again?

Just stay tuned insha Allah. We will jam again soon☺️😇 thank you if you have taken your time to read this mini talkshow 😃