Interview with the Author: Know more about the Journal and how it is evolved

This script is based on the Interview with the Author: Suganya Kadhirvel, Illustrator & Graphic Designer: Rudy Kumar, and Illustrator: Deepshika.

How did you select the questions for the Journal?

For each question, I thought about my answer and my emotions. Did the question impact me? if yes, then that question was selected.

A few questions were based on real-life incidents, for example, When I was in my daughter's tennis class, I saw a 14-year-old girl getting constant feedback & advice from her coach, her attitude was awesome on how she took it, I was quite impressed, that led me to a question “What do you when a coach or teachers advise you?”. I am not sure, If I will have that patience and attitude the teen had when I am put in such a situation.

The initial draft had around 200 odd questions and it was a mix of both simple and complex. I wanted only simple questions with high impact so filtered for simpler ones that kids could easily relate to.

How did you arrange the questions? Is there an order

The main aim was to self-reflect, hence first questions were focussed on who they are, their principles, their favorite things, strengths, weaknesses, etc. Then we moved on to their emotions, goal, planning, and their bonding, etc. Questions will fall under any of the below categories and they are arranged in the below order. But the beauty of this journal is you don’t have to follow any order, pick any question you want to reflect upon.

• You

• Favourite

• Life

• Strength

• Weakness

• Goals

• Motivation

• Time

• Planning

• Anger

• Gratitude

• Family

• Advice / Guidance

• Decision

• Help

• Health

• Character

• Emotions

• Love/Care

• Open minded

• Risk

• Role Model

• Stress

• Worry

What do you think is the most Challenging Question? How did you arrive at the Avatar-Tara Expression for this question?

Have you pushed yourself out of your comfort zone? that's one question, which is quite interesting, as it keeps me redefining myself.

What motivates you, we didn’t know what motivates Tara, we were thinking, so finally decided to make Tara also think, we still felt the pic was incomplete, so we added the dog jumping for the bone

Why do you have Activities pages in the middle of this Journal? Is there a purpose? Tell us about the activities that you have.

Who doesn’t like fun, so we thought why not a few pages for fun activities? Also, kids open up easily to activity pages, which could help them in journaling the questions, hence we decided to add them.

Just one page each for 1. find the difference between two pictures, 2. maze, 3. find the lost Tara in a Picture, 4. coloring page, 5. interesting doodle, 6. find odd one out. In "find the lost Tara" activity, the picture has a lot of games, and all games are played by Tara, the pics that you see in activities are Rudy’s innovative ideas.

Why 101 questions? any specific reason?

Well, these 101 questions itself have made the journal 268 pages, any more will make it even bigger. And the number 101 seems fascinating to me, like in our culture the “moi panam”, it could go on. Just an insider note, the questions are not numbered, but the exact number of questions in the journal is more than 101. May you would want, count and check

How did the Cover page evolve? what is the concept behind it?

We wanted the Tara journaling pic as the front cover with the regular wording of the Journal name. But the cloud, emotions, hand-inducing-Tara thinking, etc are all conceptualized by Rudy. Hats off to his imagination. We all liked the design.

What took more time in this journal?

The layout of the journal and our avatar Tara. We wanted the layout to be simple but attractive for kids with more free space, so we went with numerous styles and finalized this current template.

Initially, I wanted to have a pet or cartoon portrayed in the journal with different expressions and emotions for each question, as I wanted it to be an informal book with the kids. We tried a few characters, but none were up to my satisfaction. Later, I realized that the kids could easily relate to other kids rather than pets or cartoons. I wanted the character to be simple and have the next-door appearance with glasses. That was how Tara was born.

What was the total effort spent for this Journal?

Hmm, this was not a strict 9 to 6 job for 5 days, we worked whenever we got time, including the weekends. It took around 6 months of mine, the graphic designer and the illustrator's time for the journal to be conceptualized and implemented.

You did Self-Publishing for the first time. Tell us about the Book printing and its specifications.

This Journal is available in two sizes

1. US Standard size, i.e. 6'' x 9'' through Amazon KDP outside India

2. A5 size in India

We have used 100 GSM quality Cream color paper which is otherwise called Natural Shade paper

We have used Sewing and Hardcover Case Binding for the Book Cover

I wanted the journal to have more space to write and draw for the kids to express freely. So it was either A5 or 6”x9” US Standard size. We wanted to publish our Journal through Amazon KDP as we don't need to Stock the printed journals upfront and Amazon will take care of Printing and delivery on-demand basis. This will save our investment. Amazon KDP prefers US Standard Size, i.e. 6'' x 9'' for hardcover books, so I chose US Standard size. So in Amazon KDP, the journal will be available in US Standard Size throughout the world.

But Amazon KDP service for hardcover books is not available in India, so we decided to Self-Publish the Journal inside India. In India, US Standard size printing is 75% costlier than A5 size printing though the Size difference is very marginal. So we decided to stick to A5 size for the Journal in India.

White paper strains your eyes after focusing on it for some time, since kids would require around 20 to 30 min to reflect on and write in the journal, cream paper would be soothing to the eyes.

Kids are going to draw, color, paint, write, doodle, etc. in the Journal. We wanted the best quality paper to support kid's creativity and prevent any easy damage so we have used 100 gsm art papers.

If you have noted any high-quality diary, all pages will be opened flat, so we can write comfortably, so we have used the same Sewing and Hardcover Case Binding for the journal. This binding will help prevent the pages from closing while the kids are lost in their creative thoughts. As the pages will always be opened flat, kids can comfortably write till the edge of any page.

Have you tried filling up your journal by yourself? what was the outcome?

Yes, of course, I did, I do regularly. I have been using it since the time we got the draft version of our Journal. To be frank, every time I use this journal, I get indulged in my thoughts and it feels really wonderful.

Did your kids try the Journal? Did any other kids try? What was the feedback you got from the Kids?

Well, yes, my kids use this regularly. They are the primary critics of this Journal. Why dots on the right side, why lines, why Avatar, why Tara is not colored, etc. The journal has evolved mainly based on the feedback received from kids.

But overall, we have been flooded with positive comments both from the parents and kids.

Why is Tara in the illustration why not a Boy character?

Maybe, I have 2 girls and I see a lot of expressions and emotions from them. We were able to depict and express different emotions in the picture through Tara better. We felt Tara is more connected to the Journal and complete.

What is your favorite part of this journal?

Tara’s pic on every page, I could easily relate to my daily emotions or expressions. The quotes motivate me and remind me of what needs to be focussed

Any Interesting moments in the journey of the journal?

We took our journal copy to the Higginbothams bookstore to see how it fit among the other books in the bookstore. It was a great feeling to admire our own creation in the middle of other great books. We felt our journal was perfectly justified on the shelf along with other books and that has really boosted our confidence.

My daughter asked me, amma you say you are an author, but all you do is ask questions in the journal, asking questions is easy but answering the questions is tough like in exam papers.

I couldn’t help smiling, I told her that asking questions may sound simple, but asking sensible questions is tough

What are the tools you have used for the Journal development?

Basically, it all started with my rough book, then MS Word, Excel, Apple Procreate, and finally the Affinity Publisher

What was the experience working with your daughter? Was there a conflict?

My daughter was awesome! She would want me to say that, yes, definitely she is. During the initial days, she was very patient and she did the illustrations very carefully. As days passed into weeks, she was rushing the drawings like school work that needed to be finished and tossed away, and when there was a correction, she took it personally. But Rudy was the savior here, he would get the required correction from her making it like a funny competition on who made the change either his, or mine, or Deepshi’s, or my little one's to see which looked better, etc. End result, Deepshi’s would be amazing.

Can a normal person become an author?

Why Not? You are what you believe. If I can, I am sure others can also be.

Who are the audiences of this journal? Why just tweens and teens?

Kids, kids, kids, I wanted to make an impact in the kid's lives through this journal, Tweens and Teens are the ages when kids become more independent and want to make their own decisions, so if they could reflect upon themselves it would help them to make more wise decisions

This journal is not restricted to kids, anyone can use this journal. There are a few questions specifically composed for kids, so Tweens and Teens would be ideal for this journal.

I see motivational quotes on every page. Interesting! Tell us if the Avatar Tara's expression, the motivational quote, and the question are all relevant.

Yes, the motivational quotes are relevant to the questions, when you are lost in your thoughts on a question, these motivational quotes will come from a third person’s perspective.

We wanted Tara to be the next-door girl image and her thoughts and emotions for the questions are what is pictured. This can be easily related to the kid's expression