Suzanne Strong's Blog, page 18

The women I wrote my novel about…

https://edition.cnn.com/2019/01/27/homepage2/kurdish-female-fighters/index.html

(News Source: CNN Website)

Hey guys, thanks for stopping by. These are examples of the phenomenal women from the YPJ and Kurdish forces I wrote my new novel, Where the Sun Rises, about. None of these women appear in my novel but I wanted to show you the real faces and stories of some of the women.

Their stories inspired and captivated me and I wanted to write from their point of view. Therefore I spent four years and more than 2000 of hours of research to seek to capture this point of view. There has been a lot of journalism done about these women, but no one had written a novel about their phenomenal fight against Daesh so I thought to myself, “what if we could see this war from their eyes?” I also wanted to show the world that bravery was wearing a female uniform and that Daesh were running from these women.

I contacted the Women of Rojava YPJ women on twitter and they wrote this supportive statement of my novel.

“We Kurdish people are proud of people like you, that are supporting us and are in solidarity with us. It means a lot for us. We know that we have solidarity from all around the world and that makes us stronger. We women are fighting here for all the women not only in Rojava- Syria.. Your book is amazing sister. Thank you so much, solidarity greetings from Rojava-Northern-Syria.”

Response from YPJ Media Centre. The woman could not be
named for security purposes.

I am thankful to Hassan Somboli as well from the Brisbane Kurdish Association who assisted me with language and culture. I was excited to be able to communicate with the YPJ Media Centre who were very supportive of what I was doing. I also communicated with Claudia Al Minyah and Hanna Bohman, a Canadian woman who joined the YPJ and fought in Syria. Hanna read my book and enjoyed it.

So much work, care and energy has gone into this novel. I am excited to release it to the world in October.

Following your main character

“First, find out what your hero wants, then just follow him or her!”

Ray Bradbury

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I always think the best work I’ve written is when I allowed my characters to do what they would do, and say. That is when it works. Let them be who they are, say what they will and do what they will do, not what you would. This has been the case for me the many years I have been writing.

Have a great day!

Freedom Writing – 13 countries…

Hey guys, I am always interested to see in what countries Freedom Writing is downloaded when I offer it free. The countries in which it has been downloaded are as follows:

UK, Canada, Japan, USA, Italy, Spain, Netherlands, India, Mexico, Brazil, Australia, France and Germany.

It has been purchased in eight countries, USA, Mexico, Canada, Australia, UK, France, India and Brazil. Thank you to all my readers. I hope you enjoy it and please leave a review.

Freedom Writing for free!

Hey guys, for a few days my book will be free on amazon.com.