Write what you know. It is the saying that guides all those who explore the world of writing fiction in novel form. For me, this was an easy choice. I wanted to write about student life before I got too far ahead in life to remember it as clearly and dearly as I do now. The part most dear to me about student life were the little things we did for each other as friends and family members to help us get through this time of our lives, which seemed to stretch on and on. Then I wanted to write about these moments as well as those features of student life in Pakistan that students challenge and that students celebrate. A challenge moment might be exams, and a celebratory moment might be end of exams, tearing up the exam schedule that was done and in the past. I drew on my experiences and observations of student life to write up ice cream parties as well as the doom and gloom that accompanies bad results.

The result was my novel, Hackschool Project. I am proud of it and the subject matter I chose to write about. When it comes to young life and student life, anything you write about is someone’s story. I wrote this story for 3 years in Us Magazine, The News International. Then I compiled it into novel form. In a way it is a story that has stayed with me and been my companion for years, the characters often thought of in between everything I was doing in my own life at the time.

Here it is. My beauty of an ink baby. I say it’s a wonder it even came to be, and for every novel it is so. It was published on the 21st of January, 2021.

You can get it here: https://www.meraqissa.com/book/1668