Coaching KidLit Episode 57: Writing Your Obsessions with Guest Pooja Makhijani

Coaching KidLit Episode 57: Writing Your Obsessions with Guest Pooja Makhijani

Connect with Pooja Online:

Website: https://www.poojamakhijani.com
Instagram: @laborofloaf

Topics Covered

[07:05] Food and family’s influence on her writing.
[09:03] Sensory detail in food and  writing.
[11:11] Art is Messy- Importance of imperfection; focus on process, not product.
[15:34]  Writing your obsessions
[18:36] Strategies for writing authentic sensory experiences.
[22:14] Collaborating with illustrators in picture books.
[27:16] Action items

Books Mentioned

• Mama’s Saris by Pooja Makhijani, Illustrated by Elena Gomez
• Bread Is Love by Pooja Makhijani, Illustrated by Lavanya Naidu
• Together for Mama by Pooja Makhijani, Illustrated by Nadia Alam
• Aunties by Pooja Makhijani (forthcoming)
• Mirabella and the Faded Phantom by Sharon Skinner

Listen:

Transcript

Sharon Skinner: Welcome to Coaching KidLit, a podcast about writing and publishing good kid lit. We dig into various aspects of writing craft through a kid lit lens and provide inspiration and clear, actionable items to help writers like you move forward on their kid lit writing journeys. I’m Sharon Skinner, author accelerator, certified book coach, and author of speculative fiction and kid lit, including picture books, middle grade, and young adult.

Hello, listeners, and welcome to another episode of Coaching KidLit. This month’s guest is Pooja Makhijani. She’s the author of Mama’s Saris, Bread Is Love, Together For Mama, and Aunties. Her bylines have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, NPR, Real Simple, The Atlantic, wsj.com, The Cut, Teen Vogue, Epicurious, Publishers Weekly, Elle, Bon Appétit, [00:01:00] The Kitchn, BuzzFeed, and Catapult, among others.

Her essay, “The Path to an American Dream Paved in Vienna Fingers,” which sounds delicious, was named notable in the Best American Food Writing. She holds degrees from John Hopkins University, Sarah Lawrence College, and Rutgers University. She has twice been in residence at Space on Ryder Farm and received a general scholarship from the Highlights Foundation.

Pooja is represented by Saba Suleman at Talcott Notch Literary Services. Readers can reach her via Instagram at instagram.com/laborofloaf. Pooja, welcome to the show.

Pooja Makhijani: Thank you so much, Sharon. I’m so excited to be here

Sharon Skinner: And I’m excited to have you here. I really loved Bread Is Love.

Pooja Makhijani: Oh, thank you

Sharon Skinner: There’s so much wonderful emotion wrapped up in the story.

”’ It’s a picture book that you have done an amazing job of getting some family and [00:02:00] cultural components into, with still having that wonderful awe factor, that, lovely emotional aspect to it

Pooja Makhijani: Thank you so much

Sharon Skinner: So tell us a little bit about your journey because you didn’t just start writing kids books

Pooja Makhijani: No. So my journey is, a kind of weird and winding one My first, picture book was released in 2007. That was called Mama’s Saris. I sold it, when I was 24 years old, so I was very young at the time. And It’s a story about this little girl’s fascination with her mother’s saris, which are South Asian, draped garments, as you may know.

And, it was a really fun book to write. I was really fortunate to get it published at a very young age. But publishing was very different then. I didn’t have an agent. I was quite young. Publishing wasn’t very diverse then, and so I didn’t find kind of the community and what I needed to, support myself at that time.

concurrently, I was of course, doing a lot of journalism, as , you so graciously, cited many of my bylines, and [00:03:00] I found a lot of success in writing sort of essays and reported pieces and recipes and a whole bunch of different types of writing in magazines and newspapers.

my picture book writing career sort of stalled. Everything else sort of took off. And then, the pandemic happened, which I think was a turning point for a lot of people in, sort of many, many ways. And the pandemic was such a, transitional period for so many people. I think it made people reexamine what was really important in their lives, and made me think that I wanted to publish another picture book. Picture books were always my first love.

Children’s literature was always my first love. So I used that time to just reimmerse myself in that world of picture books. And the industry has changed so much since then as well. I think that there is a lot more, diversity and a lot more openness to all kinds of stories that maybe, I think the door was a little less open 20 years ago. and by this time I’d also gotten an agent, and like I [00:04:00] said, had all these other successes which, you know, had, given me a lot of confidence to sort of return to this world. And, Bread Is Love, was a manuscript that I had written during that time.

and that’s what brought me back to writing for children. And now I have this succession of three books coming out in the next, you know, year and a half or so

Sharon Skinner: So that was quite a long break between your first published picture book and your more recent works.

Pooja Makhijani: Yeah

And like I said, it was just life, other professional opportunities, and then, a once in a lifetime hopefully pandemic that really helped, I think, change people’s career trajectories in a big way

Sharon Skinner: Yeah, I agree. It changed the way that we approach a lot of things, I think,

Pooja Makhijani: Yeah, absolutely

Sharon Skinner: so when did you know you wanted to be a writer?

Pooja Makhijani: Yeah, I think that when I think about it, it’s probably the minute I could start writing. I remember in elementary school clearly… I’ve always had a journal. I’ve always had a diary. I [00:05:00] have all my diaries. I hope no one ever reads them. I don’t know what’s gonna happen when someone reads my diary from when I was 11 years old and about, all the crushes that I had at that time.

But I was also writing, I remember writing, like, basically Nancy Drew fan fiction, and basically Babysitter’s Club fan fiction, you know, when I was in my tweens and teens. when I got to high school, I started taking creative writing classes at the local community college. so I think writing has always been something that I have done because it was a way to express myself, a way to capture all my feelings, a way to document things that were happening.

But I was also the sort of good immigrant daughter, and I went on to study engineering as an undergraduate, because that’s what immigrant children do. So I didn’t pursue it as an undergraduate, at first. But I think, again, once I graduated from college with a engineering degree, I didn’t use it at all.

I moved to New York City, and I said, “I wanna become a [00:06:00] writer.” And, I started freelancing, and I worked in publishing, and I worked in television, and so on and so forth, and slowly, slowly, step by step, built my career from there. so when you ask when did I know I wanted to become a writer, I couldn’t pinpoint that exact moment, ’cause it seems like it’s been inside me for as long as I can remember

Sharon Skinner: I think really in the fourth grade is when it really struck for me. But, I was writing and illustrating my own stories long before that, and I’ve always had a love of books. So I think it was always in my soul as well. But I always love to hear when other people say that it was already part of who they, are.

So you do a lot of food writing,

Pooja Makhijani: Yes

Sharon Skinner: hence Bread is Love, of course. But tell us a little bit about writing about food and family. Let’s start with what got you into writing about food? You were studying to be an engineer, and then you pivoted into, various kinds of writing, and a big part of [00:07:00] that is writing about food. So tell us how that pivot happened first.

Pooja Makhijani: I think that writing about food came really naturally. Food is so essential to my home and my relationships with other people. I grew up in a multi-generational household, with my dad’s parents, and, food was one of our main connections to each other, food and language. And it allowed me to connect to them.

They lived through the partition of India. They had been refugees. They had immigrated to the United States. and it allowed, me to connect with them in a way that still feels meaningful. My grandmother taught me how to cook. My grandmother taught me how, to understand ingredients.

My grandmother taught my mom how to cook in some ways too, I think. My mom is a huge, gardener, has always been my entire life. Today she’s retired. But she and my dad still, farm in a community garden near our home and in 1,000 square [00:08:00] foot plot, which means we have fresh vegetables from June through November.

and I’m always, thinking about food and cooking and, also a huge part of, I think, my own, Community life has been thinking about food in our community, not only in the farming sense, but in the food insecurity sense. My daughter and I are always at a food bank. I’ve cooked at a community kitchen, right?

It’s just something I really love to do also. I love to cook for other people. I love to read cookbooks, and this has been again, another thing that has been pervasive for so long. And I think that our obsessions find thems selves in our art, right?

Sharon Skinner: Absolutely. I agree with that. Yeah. So you have a passion for it. You have a passion for books and writing, and a passion for food, and so of course it’s a natural fit. So , let’s talk a little bit more about using sensory detail as food writing, and how that also translates into [00:09:00] writing picture books or other types of books

Pooja Makhijani: Yeah, I think that all good writing is sensory. I think that all good writing brings you into a space where you can feel and hear and see because As writers, we want our readers to have some sort of emotional reaction to the work that we’re putting together, right? And in this specific book, I want readers to feel what it’s like for this family to make bread, what it feels like, what it smells like.

But I also, I want to evoke those emotions of warmth and togetherness and sharing. And then thirdly, to hopefully inspire them to, get into the kitchen and try to make something or find your own family ritual. This book, as you know, is about this family’s weekly bread-baking ritual. I mean, ultimately, I would love for someone to be inspired to be like, “Okay.

Well, we’re gonna make focaccia every Friday.” so I think as writers we all want some [00:10:00] kind of response from the reader. And for me, I think it’s, I want to bring them in and be like, “This is what it feels like to make bread. This is what it smells like to make bread,” on a very tactile level, but also on an emotional level, right?

It feels good to make bread. I love to share. I love to eat with my family. And then the third is to go and maybe make some, or something else. It doesn’t have to be bread. It could be a sandcastle.

Whatever

Sharon Skinner: I think you’ve accomplished that in this book. I have a question for you about the mother, figure in the book. Is that modeled after your grandmother in any way? Because you talked about how you, learned to cook from your grandmother

Pooja Makhijani: I think it’s, modeled after a lot of maternal figures I’ve had, and I think it’s a little bit of me and my child. My child is a teenager now, but we still love to cook together. We have a cookie recipe we wanna try this weekend. So I think it’s, a little bit of everything

Sharon Skinner: Pooja, I [00:11:00] particularly appreciated in Bread Is Love the fact that the bread that week wasn’t perfect.

Pooja Makhijani: Yeah

Sharon Skinner: What made you decide to include that?

Pooja Makhijani: I think that we and young people and adults alike, I think we’re constantly focused on the, product, right? And, It’s always about perfection. Practice makes perfect. Practice makes perfect is a mantra we tell ourselves, we tell young people all the time. And I think when making art, and I consider bread making an art, it’s the process that’s really compelling.

That’s where we find sort of joy and, connection and insight. And it’s in struggling with the piece of art in which we find epiphany, in which we find understandings of the world and of ourselves. And I think I really wanted to stress the process part and really say that the product is not as important You can always try again because that’s the [00:12:00] part where all the learning happens. That’s the part where actually all the joy happens. And so that was really important to me, too, for us who grow up in a culture where, like, product, the end product is always so elevated, I wanted to kind of, like, remove that away, and let’s just talk about the doing

Sharon Skinner: And I appreciated that, And the funny thing is, is that I could almost taste the crunch or sense the crunch of the not perfect bread better, I think, than I might have, gotten the visceral sense or the relay of sensory detail of maybe a perfect loaf, and I thought that that was really well done.

I so appreciate the idea that process is such a key ingredient in everything we do because as writers, we’re always looking at when will this be ready for publication? When will I be able to create this product? When will my book become… And we don’t [00:13:00] think of our book as a product. It’s an act of love.

It’s an act of passion, but we’re always aiming for that end product, then we realize that that’s not the end, of course, of the journey. But all of those iterations along the way. I like to tell my clients that, you know, we’re not ancient Egyptians. We don’t write in stone or clay tablets that harden.

We can go back and revise at any time. So the process of getting there is so important.

So do you have baking rituals with your, daughter?

Pooja Makhijani: Well, we definitely try to make a loaf of bread every week. And that’s really important, because I currently also still live in a multi-generational family, so I live with my daughter and my parents. And ever since we started baking bread every week, my mom refuses to buy store-bought bread ’cause it’s just not as good.

So to sort of deliver on that promise, we always do that. But we always have really other fun baking projects going. So, , I found these delightful K-pop demon hunters, cookie [00:14:00] cutters on Etsy. So I just bought a set, so I’m hoping to make some, like, sort of cinnamon oatmeal chocolate not sure cookies this weekend with those.

Sharon Skinner: Yum.

Pooja Makhijani: Yeah. so we’re always looking for fun projects and, whenever there’s, like, important parts of the year, a family member’s birthday, I love, for winter solstice and, summer solstice. For other holidays, you know, cultural, religious, whatever, love finding baking projects for those as well

Sharon Skinner: I love That you celebrate solstice. That makes my heart happy. I myself am a solstice baby, so I was born on the winter solstice, so I always celebrate.

Pooja Makhijani: Aw. Well, happy belated birthday.

Sharon Skinner: Thank you So let’s talk a little bit more about writing about food and family in picture books. You do a lot of books that include family and cultural aspects of family.

And I think that that’s [00:15:00] really important for a couple of reasons, and it, goes back to something you said earlier about the door wasn’t open as wide for diversity 20 years ago as it is now.

And now we’re able to see more of the cultural aspects of how various people live, and that opens up a window into other people’s lives. And so it makes me happy to see you writing things like Mama Saris and The Aunties and Bread Is Love. So do you have any other projects on the horizon that you are looking at that would fit into that?

Pooja Makhijani: Ooh. When I look at sort of my body of work across genre thus far, right, I, definitely… Again, I think we write to our obsessions, like I said, Sharon, earlier, and I think that one thing that I see as a sort of common thread through my work is, like, this idea of care and care networks, and family is surely part of that, however that family is defined.

You know, I mean [00:16:00] family in the broadest sense, right? And so I keep coming back to the ideas of what does it mean to care for another human being, right? In Mama Saris, for example, it was really about the, deep admiration that this child had for her mother, so it was a mother-daughter bond.

The Bread Is Love is about this family ritual, that is about mother and her two children as well.

Together For Mama, which is about a mother who has just given birth, but it’s also about her extended family and how her family cares for the mother, the newborn child, and our child narrator, which is the elder sister of the newborn.

And Aunties, which is forthcoming, is about broader, networks of care. in South Asian culture, and in many cultures, Auntie is a, honorific given to anyone, not just a biological sister of a parent, who takes care of a child. You know, you could call your dance teacher Auntie [00:17:00] or a bus driver Auntie, right?

It’s a, a very all-encompassing and inviting term, that asks people to take responsibility for the children in their communities, , and so I’m interested in, care, and our, collective responsibility to all of our children, right? , And I, again, I mean that really broadly.

I think that every human being is responsible for every other human being in some ways. And so that really permeates all of my work, and even in the work that I’m working on now, whether it’s, writing or whether I’m sending it to my agent or it’s out in the world and people are considering it, I think keep touching on those themes again and again and again.

Sharon Skinner: I really like that you call it writing to our obsessions, that you talk about the things that we are most focused on are the things that we really include in the work that we’re writing

Pooja Makhijani: Yeah

Sharon Skinner: Circling back to, Bread is Love, because that’s the most recent one that I read.

You did a great job [00:18:00] of the sensory detail and making sure that the tactile sensations were involved And this is tough to do in a picture book, because you only get so much space in a picture book, you only have so many words to convey this information in. And you did a, lovely job of me feeling like I know what it feels like to make bread, and , I knew what it was gonna crunch like at the end.

And I wanna know, do you, when you are writing, do you have any tricks that you use to circle back to that sensory detail or to include that sensory detail in your writing?

Pooja Makhijani: Yeah, and I think in particular when it comes to food writing is to do the thing again, right? I think you can only write when you live. For example, when I was, specifically writing, , a part of that book where they’re kneading and sort of shaping the dough, I remember was like, “Okay, I need to put this edit aside.

I need to actually go do this.” And I think, it’s like a moving [00:19:00] meditation at that point, right? Like, what is it? what are my hands doing? What does this really feel like? What is the best word for this? So in a lot of cases, it’s just going back and doing the thing. It’s like picking up a piece of fabric and smelling it and being like, “Well, what does this really smell like?”

And just to re-evoke that sensory memory or sensory feeling, sometimes can give you the exact word that you need

Sharon Skinner: I love that. Yeah, that’s great

Pooja Makhijani: Just to get away from the computer and have this kinetic moment, right? Whatever that looks like I think is really important

Sharon Skinner: Including the idea of the imperfect loaf I thought was not only a great way for you to show that the process is important, but also to allow kids to know that we’re not always gonna be perfect. We’re not always going to turn out perfect work

Pooja Makhijani: Yes. And I think that’s especially important for kids to hear. Maybe not kids this young, but who knows? In the age of AI where everyone is [00:20:00] supposed to be as sort of conformist and robotic as possible, I think that seeing imperfection in our lives makes them understand what makes us human, And we’re just in a really interesting time when it comes to What we’re supposed to produce, like you said, right? Everything has to fit into a little box in some ways. And that’s not who we are

Sharon Skinner: Well, and people are messy. Art is messy.

Pooja Makhijani: Yes.

Sharon Skinner: Things are messy. We’re so, used to going to the grocery store and all of the fruit that’s on offer is the best fruit, the most perfect fruit. The bread that we buy is consistent. We get the same thing. The reason people love certain coffee, shops is because not necessarily is it the best coffee, but it’s consistent.

You know you’re always getting the same thing, and a lot of us like consistency. But the idea i- that we’re consistent is silly because people are not consistent

Pooja Makhijani: And that if something happens that is messy or [00:21:00] unexpected, it’s okay because there’s the next day

Sharon Skinner: And we don’t always know, especially with writing, we don’t always know if the messy bit might be the better bit.

you know, the messy bit might lead us in a direction that we didn’t expect to go in, but might be the greatest direction for that project

Pooja Makhijani: Exactly

Sharon Skinner: So do you want to continue with picture book? Is that, the path that you want to continue with in children’s publishing?

Pooja Makhijani: I think so. I just really like picture books as a form. I think it’s because I also… I’m not an illustrator, but I really love the visual arts. I find it really fascinating to see the breadth and depth and range of art available just in children’s picture books, as you know.

And I love the collaborative process. So, you know, a lot of writers are like, “Well, how can you hand your work over to someone else and then have them just reimagine what’s supposed to be in your head, without really any input?” but I find that [00:22:00] process just really magical. when we handed this manuscript to Lavanya Naidu, who’s the illustrator for Bread Is Love, she just elevated it beyond anything I could have ever imagined.

In my draft, there were only two characters. There was a mother and a child. The child had no gender, but of course, I had imagined it as my like five-year-old daughter or whatever. When the sketches came back, the protagonist or the narrator character is more androgynous. It could be a boy, could be a girl, it doesn’t matter.

the character doesn’t have a gender. But what’s really interesting is that Lavanya created this other toddler sibling character, of course, that I had never imagined, and who is so expressive and has her own little arc going. She’s like molding a little characters out of the dough.

She’s drawing in the, flour that’s spilt all over the kitchen. She’s kind of doing her own thing, and she has her own little arc, which is something I never, ever, ever imagined. But it’s brought so much like [00:23:00] depth and joy and movement and energy to this book.

So I just, I loved that, that this whole new character became a part of this story.

It was fabulous. That collaborative, magical process is something That I really

enjoy. So as long as I can keep writing picture books, I would love to do that.

Sharon Skinner: I agree. visual artists, especially children’s book illustrators, are incredible at what they do, and they always add so much more to the story. And it’s important for those of us who write the text but don’t illustrate to be able to let go and, allow that to happen, because it is a magical process and it is always, for me, everything that I’ve seen, it’s always better than what I could have imagined.

Pooja Makhijani: Absolutely agree with you

Sharon Skinner: So in Love is Bread, you also provide a recipe at the back of the book so that we can make the [00:24:00] bread, and I really love that because I have a book called, Mirabella and the Faded Phantom, which is a middle-grade book, and in it, the mother and daughter actually have some of their most critical conversations over meals.

And my editor told me that not only could she practically taste the food at those times, but then she wanted to eat that food. And so she asked me to put those recipes in the book, which I did. So was it your intention from the beginning to put the recipe in the book, or did that come later?

Pooja Makhijani: No, , that was the editor’s suggestion,

to put it in the book. And there is a little bit of a caveat. So in the book, the family uses starter, which is wild yeast. So if your, listeners don’t know much about, making bread, sourdough starter is basically water, and flour that has been fermented, over time, and it’s a natural yeast, right?

It smells kind of funky., It’s all [00:25:00] bubbly and goopy. And it’s,, the sort of natural variant to the commercial yeast, that sort of powdered stuff that you get in the supermarket. , Natural yeast, , ferments your bread a little slower, so it takes longer for it to rise. And the thing is that because it takes longer for it to rise and it’s sort of this old fermented stuff, that the bread made from sourdough starter has more flavor. This is a debatable question, but let’s just leave it at that. , So in, throughout the book, , the story describes this family using starter and making bread, and it’s sort of a three-day cycle. They start on Friday, and then on Sunday they have their bread. in the recipe, we actually, I suggest using commercial yeast for families to try at home for the first time.

And once they are familiar with that, then they can sort of start this other process, which is a little bit more, unpredictable. commercial yeast makes bread baking a little bit more predictable. So that was also at the suggestion of my editor. Like, let’s make this first recipe [00:26:00] for families.

Let them try to make bread in a very simple way and then, you know, they can go on and, experiment more and more and more. But it was really fun to write. I had a bunch of friends test it for me as well. I was like, “Hey, this is a really easy recipe that I developed,

That makes two small loaves of bread,” and they all tested it for me.

And it, made its way into the back of the book.

Sharon Skinner: I love a good editor. They come up with some really brilliant ideas, ’cause it was

my editor’s idea to put the recipes in the back of the book for me too. So I hadn’t thought of that. So I love hearing that you had an editor do the same thing.

Pooja Makhijani: Yeah. I had a fantastic editor. She was just, even when she made little edits in the sort of, you know, just punctuation or a line break or, to add a line or to add alliteration in the sentence versus, you know, breaking it up, just little things. An editor can do real wonders to your manuscript

Sharon Skinner: Yes, a good editor is a gem to have. [00:27:00] They’re worth their weight, definitely. And, I am a freelance editor, so maybe I’m a little biased, but I love my editors. So Pooja, we always like to leave our listeners with an action item, to use in their own writing. What action item do you have for our listeners today?

Pooja Makhijani: Yeah, one of my favorite things to do to help me capture any sensory detail in the most accurate and most emotionally resonant way that I can is to go and do the thing. So for example, when writing Bread is Love, I remember very specifically, wanting to describe how to like sort of knead and shape a boule of bread.

And I was like, “Well, how do I do this?” So I went back into the kitchen, and I did the thing. And while I was, like, shaping my bread, I was more mindful. I went a little bit slower, right? It became like this meditation in which I was like, “Okay, what exactly is my hand doing? [00:28:00] What exactly am I smelling? What exactly does this feel like?

What is a good metaphor?” And thinking of those words while I was doing, and then returning to my keyboard maybe a little bit later and, trying to recreate that on the page. So I think in some ways, my tip is to just live life, do the thing, and bring that back. I think that writers can sometimes be really solitary and really introverted.

I’m all of those things, and we can be like, “Okay, I have to be on my keyboard.” and obviously being on your keyboard is really important because we need to

generate work, but we also need to be out there and experience things, and experience things more slowly and mindfully

Sharon Skinner: that’s a great takeaway. I think that if you are trying to write the way that a specific meal tastes, for instance, going and eating that food and thinking about what the sensations are and the visceral level, the physical, the sensory, all of [00:29:00] that, because that’s what we really are trying to get at on the page, because that’s what will be relayed into the reader brain from what we’re putting out there.

That’s a great tip. But I wanna take it a little further, because I write fantasy, and I don’t know what it would feel like to ride on the back of a dragon because I’ve never ridden on the back of a dragon. And yet, I can do other things. I’ve done other things. I’ve ridden a motorcycle.

I know what that feels like. I’ve, you know, swung through the air. I know what that feels like. I know how excited I would be to ride on the back of a dragon. I know how thrilling that would be. And so I can take other experiences from life and pull those together into that type of visceral and sensory and physical detail that I can offer up to my readers.

And so my tip is yes, do the thing that Pooja [00:30:00] says, but if you’re writing fantasy, you can still do the thing that Pooja says, because you can combine the things you know. This is where we talk about write what you know, but also, I always kind of push that into, don’t just write what you know, but write what you feel,

Pooja Makhijani: Yes

Sharon Skinner: get that sensory detail, that visceral sensation, all of that on the page.

Pooja Makhijani: And I think back to some of the other things that I said earlier, Sharon, is like also write what you’re obsessed about because then you feel it, you see it, you hear it, you think about it all the time. And all of that is like kind of swirling around in your head and your body and your being. and that I think comes out on the page in a really, authentic way.

And when it comes out in an authentic way, I think it resonates with the readers

Sharon Skinner: Absolutely. And that whole idea of writing your obsession means that you are actually living that, which is what you said, go [00:31:00] live life. You know, it’s, you’re living in that. But what you also said earlier was mindfulness, and be mindful in those moments of what that feels like. Be mindful of how you can articulate and translate that into language that, someone else could understand the same feeling from.

It’s great to be obsessed with something, but to be mindful , is a big portion of that because like you said, when you’re making bread, you’ve done it so often that you, s- do it by rote. You stop paying attention to some extent to the actual moment that you’re in. And I think that mindfulness is something we don’t do enough of, especially nowadays with everything pulling at our attention, and that idea of being mindful of how do I feel in this moment?

We don’t stop for that very often. So to make it a purposeful, experience and get into that mindfulness, that zen of the moment, if you will, whether it’s washing dishes [00:32:00] or, doing whatever it is that you’re doing that you want to convey that someone might be experiencing in your story.

Well, Pooja, it has been a pleasure speaking to you today. We could go on and on.

Pooja Makhijani: I know this is so fun.

Sharon Skinner: thanks for being here

Pooja Makhijani: Thank you, Sharon.

Sharon Skinner: And bye for now.

We hope you’ve enjoyed this episode of Coaching KidLit, a writing and book coaching podcast for writers who want to level up their kid lit game. For more episodes, visit coachingkidlit.com. And to find out more about what a book coach can do for you, visit my website, bookcoachingbysharon.com.

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#KidLit  #poojamakhijani #PictureBooks. #WritingProcess. #SensoryDetail. #FoodWriting. #FamilyStories. #CulturalRepresentation. #BreadIsLove. #DiversityInPublishing. #MindfulWriting

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Follow us on Instagram and Twitter: @CoachingKidLit

For more information about Sharon Skinner, visit bookcoachingbysharon.com or follow her on Instagram @sharon_skinner_author_bookcoach

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Want help writing, revising or editing your KidLit book? Check out my KidLit Coaching Page  or fill out my inquiry form to schedule a FREE Consult call and let’s get started!

 

Key Words: writing picture books, kidlit, children’s literature, writing craft, family in picture books, cultural diversity in children’s books, food writing, sensory detail in writing, baking rituals, multigenerational families, mother-daughter relationships, immigrant experiences, cooking with children, community care, South Asian culture, bread baking, recipes in children’s books, mindfulness in writing, process over perfection, collaborative book creation, book coaching, emotional resonance in stories, editor suggestions, inspiration for writers, journaling, fan fiction, engineering to writing career, storytelling, care networks, using personal obsessions in writing