Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
I am a freelance writer writing for clients from all over the world. Earlier I worked full time in publishing companies including the newspapers. This is my second book. The first book is “Buddha Smiles” that I self published on Create Space platform.
What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
The name of my latest book is “Write or Wrong: Games people play offline and online”. The real source of inspiration for my writing career was my English teacher in class V, who wanted me to be a writer. As for this book, the real source of inspiration was my disenchantment with the kind of work I was doing. One day, I felt extremely put off with my work of writing for others and said, “what the heck! What am I doing, why am I doing this when I feel so disgusted?” I felt disgusted with the routine and monotony of the work I was doing. So, I decided to actually write. There is an apparent contradiction when as a writer you strongly feel you want to actually write. I will tell you what…when you have the freedom to write you are better off mentally and spiritually, but when you write under compulsion to be paid for each word you feel estranged and nothing is worse in life than the sense of disenchantment, a malady that is now so much common in the current cultural age. As for this book, I said let me write something that I actually want to write. I began writing without planning and went on and on till I completed the first chapter the very same night. I felt so wonderful that I decided I was going to complete it and then I began writing in a somewhat planned manner.
Do you have any unusual writing habits?
Yes, indeed. I get really creative after midnight. That’s when I can access inspiring ideas. Also, I don’t think out and plan the scenes in advance. I let the instant flow of thought decide the events that will take place in the story. Sometimes, I have to change the plot I might have thought earlier as something better and appealing might flash to me while writing and then I decide to follow that course.
What authors, or books have influenced you?
In class V, I came across a series of books in the library with the title “I am so and so. I live in…” with the cover page showing a child from a particular nation pointing at the map of a nation on the globe. That’s how I came to know about the life of children in poor and rich nations. Then I started reading Enid Blyton.
After that I read “The Chariots of Gods”, “Life After Death”, “Damien Omen”, “Dracula”, and God knows what. But in Class VII, I read Munshi Premchand as part of our text and I was completely awed. I read several novels by Premchand and could not help weeping while reading. However, I used to be intrigued by the supernatural and paranormal kind of books. When I was in class IV, I bought the Hindi translation of Mahabaharata.
I was deeply influenced by the works of existential writers like Sartre, Kafka and Camus.
In the first year of college, I read “A Search in Secret India” by Paul Brunton. This was the kind of book, I could never tire of reading and hankered for more. Later I read, “Autobiography of a Yogi”. In short, my reading habits were not balanced and directed. I used to read anything that came my way but could remember the few that impacted me and forget the rest. I always wondered how my friends could so avidly read book after book like Harold Robins, James Hadley Chase, and Agatha Christie, while I could not hold my attention after trying few pages.
What are you working on now?
Right now I am working on a character who comes to India to outsource their fabric business but inadvertently lands into a soup with locals here. The media blows the story out of proportion while the protagonists and his Indian associate run away to hide in a monastery. It is in the process of running away and hiding into a monastery, the protagonist learns some valuable lessons one of which is that you’re a victim of your own fear. The world outside is only as good or bad as your personal sense of well being or fear. When you learn to overcome your fear, you overcome the greatest challenge you can ever have. The realization of this truth instills a huge sense of confidence in the protagonist, who comes to win back his business empire but by then he turns into a philanthropist and his wife looks after the buisness.
What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
I am experimenting with Awesomegang for the first time. I haven’t used any other method earlier.
Do you have any advice for new authors?
I would recommend them to explore the niche they are best at because writing itself can be very broad. So, if you are interested in writing fiction, you need to explore the genre further down – stories for children, teens or adults and what is going to be your central message.
Having once decided to write and having decided on the topic to be written, all you need to do is persist with writing because I know after writing first few pages, it is common to forget it and get busy with life.
Third and that is most important, you have to decide who are going to be your readers and how you are going to market your product to them. Like most of the aspiring writers, I also mistakenly believed that once you write, you are done with as your publisher will do the rest. That’s not how it really works these days. Writers must develop marketing skills to take their products across the readers’ spectrum
What is the best advice you have ever heard?
.The best advice from several sources I think I ever had is that you should concentrate on writing your first, the second, the third and so on books without worrying about the outcome of your marketing efforts, and then success will be yours.
What are you reading now?
I am reading “Twilight”. I tried to read Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul recently.
What’s next for you as a writer?
I would want to do some serious research for whatever I am going to write next time.
If you were going to be stranded on a desert island and allowed to take 3 or 4 books with you what books would you bring?
The Holy Bible, The Bhagvad Gita and The Diary of Anne Frank. If I am allowed at least some papers and pen, I would want to write “The Diary of a Survivor on a Marooned Island”.
Author Websites and Profiles
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