I am so excited to post this interview with the lovely Tashie Bhuiyan.
Her YA debut, COUNTING DOWN WITH YOU, releases in 2021, featuring a "Bangladeshi-Muslim teenager who navigates the difficulties of independence, family, and first love after being roped into a fake dating facade by a classmateโ. I'm even more excited because Tashie herself is Bangladeshi, and having this representation in publishing is so, so needed.
I am eager to get my hands on COUNTING DOWN WITH YOU. Like, can it be 2021 already pls?
How do you make one month last a lifetime?
Karina Ahmed has a plan. Keep her head down, get through high school without a fuss, and follow her parentsโ rulesโeven if it means sacrificing her dreams. When her parents go abroad to Bangladesh for four weeks, Karina expects some peace and quiet. Instead, one simple lie unravels everything.
Karina is my girlfriend.
Tutoring the schoolโs resident bad boy was already crossing a line. Pretending to date him? Out of the question. But Ace Clyde does everything rightโhe brings her coffee in the mornings, impresses her friends without trying, and even promises to buy her a dozen books (a week) if she goes along with his fake-dating facade. Though Karina agrees, she canโt help but start counting down the days until her parents come back.
T-minus twenty-eight days until everything returns to normalโbut what if Karina no longer wants it to?
So before we get started with the interview, I just want to give a warm thank you to Tashie for being such a sweetheart when I reached out about this interview. From a fellow Bangladeshi woman, thank you for creating a space for us and writing a fierce Bangladeshi character, a story full of culture and representation.
1. When did you first realise you wanted to be a writer?
Is it boring to say there wasnโt a specific moment? When I was younger, I couldnโt speak English. For the first few years of elementary school, I was in ESL (English as a Second Language), but in second grade, my teacher introduced me to the Magic Tree House series and I never looked back. Since then, Iโve loved reading with a passion. When I entered middle school, I tried my knack at writing and found that I enjoyed it a lot, too. Ever since seventh grade, Iโve been regularly writing thousands upon thousands of words every year.
2. How long does it take you to write a book? How long did it take you to write COUNTING DOWN WITH YOU?
Depends on the book! My contemporary books take less amount of time in comparison to my fantasy books. For a YA contemporary, Iโd say around a month or less. For a YA fantasy, Iโd say between 2-3 months. COUNTING DOWN WITH YOU was written in 30 days.
3. What is your work schedule like when you're writing?
I tend to plan my books around (Camp) NaNoWriMo, so I have the daily word count tracker which tells me to write about 1.6k words a day. I usually aim to do at least 2k a day though, just to make sure I have breathing room in case I have to miss a day. Although, honestly, it usually ends up more than 2k. This past Camp NaNo in July, I did around 5k a day. This upcoming November NaNo, I wonโt be surprised if I do something similar.
4. What would you say is your interesting or unusual writing quirk?
Hmmm, I donโt know if I have an unusual one, but I love to send my friends snippets as I write. Bless their hearts, they always indulge me. It really gives me a confident boost when theyโre hype about my characters/scenes, because it makes me hopeful that eventual readers will be too!
5. Where do you get your ideas for your books?
By consuming media, I think. Thereโs a lot of things I watch and Iโm like wow, I want to write a dynamic like that, or I want to wrote that trope, or I want to use that plot device. The other day I heard a song by the Jonas BrothersโโHesitateโโand the line โI thank the oceans for giving me youโ inspired a whole book idea. Similarly, a different day I was watching the movie The Prestige and thought it would be so cool to write a โrevelation plotโ which then inspired the WIP Iโm writing right now.
6. What do you like to do when youโre not writing?
Immersing myself in pop culture. I love music, movies, art, etc. For example, Iโm currently obsessed with Corpse Husband and have watched him play Among Us for far, far too many hours. I also enjoy reading, spending time with my friends, visiting new places, learning new skills, and so on. Most of the time though, in a non-pandemic world, you can find me clowning around with my friends in a Chipotle somewhere in midtown Manhattan.
7. If you had the opportunity to live anywhere in the world for a year while writing a book that took place in that same setting, where would you choose? Why?
ITALY!!!!! Iโd love to write a book set in Italy. In high school, I took Italian for four years. Iโve even had the pleasure of visiting Italy a few years ago with my family, and I loved everything about it. I think it would be such a fun backdrop for a YA rom-com!
8. So, letโs say youโve been sitting with a blank document open for ages and you canโt conjure up even a sentence. How do you get your creativity flowing?
That is happening to me currently, LOL. Right now, my plan is do NaNoWriMo because then I know I /have/ to hit a word count by the end of the day, so even if the words arenโt the best, theyโll still get written down. If I wanted to get my creativity flowing right in this exact moment though, Iโd probably ask a friend to sprint with me, because again, it means I /have/ to write a certain amount of words. I think pressure and deadlines are really helpful for me to fight writerโs block.
9. When did you find out about the offer for COUNTING DOWN WITH YOU?
I was at an Italian restaurant with my friend, catching up after a while, when JL emailed me with the offer. Almost immediately afterward, she called me, and I must have spent thirty minutes just losing my mind at the restaurant. Iโm still so deeply sorry to my friend who had to watch me have that mental breakdown, hahaha. But it was really surreal and wild and not at all the type of news you expect to get in public!
10. What was your inspiration behind this book?
Iโve been asked this a few times, and honestly, I donโt know if there was a specific inspiration. But I did have a specific motivationโI wanted to write a book where brown girls could feel seen. When I was growing up, there were no books that captured my experience as a young Bangladeshi kid. Even now, there are so few. So I decided I wanted to write my own, based on the life I have lived thus far, and based on the lives of the people around me. I remember one of my cousins read COUNTING DOWN WITH YOU and cried, because it hit so close to home. Itโs wild how we can go through life without realizing weโre never the main character, not until we finally do see ourselves on the page, and everything clicks. But yeah, that was my goal with writing this book. Also who can resist a good fake dating plot? Certainly not me!
11. How did you come up with the title for it?
So the initial title for my book was Foolish Lionheart, taken directly from a line in the book. But after signing with my lovely agent JL Stermer at New Leaf Literary, I had a kind of an eye-opening moment where the right title hit me. Throughout the book, Karina counts down the days until her parents come home from a trip abroad. She also has an internal countdown which she uses to deal with her anxiety. Since this book is a romance, I decided to combine the idea of a countdown with the romanceโso Counting Down with You, as Karina counts down with Ace.
12. Do you plan and plot your books before writing them or make it up as you go along?
Iโm a HUGE plotter. The book Iโm writing right now has an outline of 8,000 words. I canโt imagine winging the whole thing. Since Iโm an overwriter, Iโd probably meander too much and mess up the pacing, ending up with a 200k word book or something ridiculous. So plotting is definitely for me.
13. What advice do you have for aspiring authors?
Keep writing! Donโt let one book slow you down. Sometimes we have to write books to learn more about ourselves as writers and to learn craft, so we can write the next book even better. Donโt stew too long over one idea if it isnโt panning out the way you hoped. There are more books inside you!
14. Who is the most supportive person in your life when it comes to your writing?
My best friends, for sure. Not one single person, but all of them collectively. Theyโve all been so extremely supportive and loving and have all read my books. Most of them have been on the phone with me as I ramble about an idea in the middle of the night, trying to sort through a plot hole. I wouldnโt be here without them!
15. I know youโre a massive Tangled fan (so am I!!)โwould you ever maybe write a Tangled-inspired book?
Funny you should askโฆโฆ.. because I have! I have a WIP called Be The Light, and itโs a South Asian Rapunzel retelling. I wonโt say too much, because I hope itโll be published in the near future (I hope no one beats me to the chase!)โฆ but the dedication for that book is: For all the brown girls locked up in their towers. Itโs a villain origin story featuring enemies-to-lovers, a marriage of convenience, light/dark symbolism, and a villain love interestโฆ
16. What do you think makes a good story?
Love of storytelling. I think you can tell most of the time if an author genuinely loves telling stories, because it shows in their writing. Itโs in the way the scenes flow, the characters interact, the tension builds, and so on.
17. What do you think makes a book diverse and how important is it to you?
I think a book is diverse if it features marginalized characters as main charactersโwhether thatโs as the protagonist, love interest, best friend, etc, etc. They play some pivotal role in the story, and their background is never shied away from or brushed aside. I think if someone writes stories with casts like thatโin a sensitive, authentic manner, whether because they have first-hand experience with that marginalized background, or have hired sensitivity readersโthen theyโre writing diverse books. Itโs deeply important to me to write and read diversely, as I believe people of all backgrounds should be represented in media and see themselves on the page/screen. Having lived in New York City my whole life, itโs baffling to me when I read books with only allocishet white able-bodied characters.
18. Following on from the previous question, what would you say to those who argue โthereโs too many POC in books now/youโre just forcing itโ (because Iโve seen a lot of that floating around the internet)?
I think, bouncing off my last answer, thatโs a ridiculous thing to say since some of us have lived diverse lives. Growing up, my friends have always been people of all backgrounds. My neighbours all look different from me. My classmates all look different from me. The strangers I see on the subway all look different from me. How is it forced when itโs a reality? If anything, writing books with white people as the default is what feels forced to me.
19. Who are your favourite authors and which books of theirs do you like the most? Why?
Iโm a huge fan of Tahereh Mafi, and my favourite book by her is A Very Large Expanse of Sea. I also love RoshaniChokshi, and my favorite book by her is The Star-Touched Queen. Renee Ahdieh is another wonderful author, and my favorite book by her is The Wrath and the Dawn. Another great author is Madeline Miller, and my favorite book by her is The Song of Achilles.
20. Do you have a favourite time of day to write?
Iโm a night owl, so I find writing in the late evening to be most satisfying.
21. Which of your characters is your favourite?
Noura, from Be The Light, the dark Rapunzel WIP I mentioned earlier. She is my favorite character Iโve ever written, and I wish I had a character like her when I was growing up. I think it would have made a world of difference.
22. What are you working on at the moment?
Iโm working a YA fantasy inspired by Inception. It features enemies with benefits, dream magic, found family, and a heist. ๐
23. What would you say is the hardest thing about writing?
For me personally, I find it really hard to get focused. My brain often jumps all over the place to a lot of different ideas, so settling into one story can often take a minute for me. Once I do find solid ground, though, I dive right in and get to work. But getting there is really hard for me.
24. At the moment, what are you reading?
Right now, Iโm mentoring in Pitch Wars, so Iโve been reading through potential menteesโ manuscripts! But my next read is Gearbreakersby Zoe Hana Mikuta.
25. What books or movies can be compared to this story you created?
For COUNTING DOWN WITH YOU, I would comp To All The Boys Iโve Loved Before and the Netflix original โNever Have I Everโ.
26. Which scene or chapter is your favourite? Which one was the most difficult to write?
Thereโs a scene in the latter half of the book where Karina and Ace are caught in a thunderstorm on their way to Aceโs house, and itโs one of my favorites because of a dialogue exchange they have about lightning and thunder. (And because: KISSING IN THE RAIN!!!!!!) I found the scenes with Karinaโs parents very difficult to write, as her relationship with them is very complicated. Those scenes hit a little close to home, so it was hard to draw on my own experiences for them, but itโs worth it if even one single brown kid feels seen because of it.
27. What are some must-read titles youโd recommend?
Along with the ones I mentioned above, These Violent Delights by Chloe Gong, The Kiss Quotient by Helen Hoang, Circe by Madeline Miller, and Burn for Me by Ilona Andrews.
28. If you could only read three books for the rest of your life, which ones would you pick? And which ones would Karina pick?)
Omg, this is so HARD??? Iโd pick The Song of Achilles, A Very Large Expanse of Sea, and one of the Percy Jackson books by Rick Riordan. Karina would probably pick Pride and Prejudice, Romeo and Juliet, and Anne of Green Gables, since she loves classics. (But sheโs a huge fan of YA too!)
29. What would you like your readers to take away from this book?
I hope they take away hope. I hope reading Karinaโs story uplifts them and reminds them to stay strong, and that things can and will get better.
30. What advice would you give to your younger self?
Trust in yourselfโyouโll end up where you need to be, and youโll be the one to get yourself there.
Tashie Bhuiyan is a Bangladeshi American writer based in New York City. She recently graduated from St. Johnโs University with a bachelorโs degree in Public Relations, and is an Author Mentor Match alum. Born and raised in Queens, sheโs been a New Yorker her entire life and grew up in the city that never sleeps. As a writer (and avid reader), sheโs used to not getting that much sleep anyway.
Since she was in sixth grade, sheโs been attempting her hand at telling stories. Her first novel was an outstanding six pages. From the middle grade summers spent in the library, where her mother used to work, to the high school years spent in the hallways of Bronx Science writing thousands and thousands of words that will thankfully never see the light of day, sheโs developed an intense passion for the written word.
Nowadays, she can be found in either a bookstore or a Chipotle in midtown rambling about the ten billion book ideas in her head (or the latest meme she happened to come across on Twitter) using a significant amount of hand gestures.
Her debut YA contemporary novel COUNTING DOWN WITH YOU (Inkyard/HarperCollins) releases on May 4th, 2021. She is represented by the lovely JL Stermer at New Leaf Literary & Media, Inc.
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