Deepti L. Sharma's Blog
September 23, 2020
Rejection in the World of Publishing – A Lingering Question
Co-authored with Dr Ashish Rastogi, NIAC Ambassador
“This doesn't feel like the right project for me at this time. I'm so sorry, but this is a pass for me.”
Kind words, but they cut you deep if you are a writer trying to get your book published. Put in a single, simple term- rejection. In the life of each author comes not one but several moments of such rejections. It stings, it hurts, it disappoints, and sometimes it even demoralises. And why shouldn’t it? There we are, our souls laid bare on paper, invested in our story and deeply in love with the characters we worked to bring to this world, only to know (from those whose opinions matter) that they aren’t good enough!
The question ‘So why was I rejected again?’ arises with each query rejection, with no easy answers. The authors are usually left wondering seriously about their incapability at writing or crafting a plot, taking shots in the dark, torturing themselves.
The reason is the complete absence of a clear-cut rejection mail in most cases, whereas in some cases, the wordings of such a mail are so generic that they provide little guidance to the author. Several publication houses, in their submission instructions to authors, clearly mention that the absence of a response from them is to be interpreted as a rejection. Some of the others who do take the trouble to respond at the end of 12 weeks indicate how thoroughly they enjoyed going through what you wrote but that presently they are not publishing that genre. Truth be told, such responses (or the lack of them) give the uncomfortable feeling that probably one’s manuscript was not even read through.
Are there parallels to the submission- review and publication process in other fields? Can the book publishing industry adopt some of those practices?
Coming from the field of science, I know that a systematic approach can be adopted which supports the writing journeys of authors all over the world. Publication is a thing in the science world, too. We need to publish research papers in journals that have high citation indices, these indices calculated by Thomas Reuters no less, if we want entry or promotions in good research institutes and gain the respect of our colleagues. Papers in the scientific world are also rejected galore – in fact, it is quite rare for a researcher to not get rejected several times. However, every rejection is meticulously explained, to the depth of pointing out which line number on which page the reviewer had an issue with. Yes, that detailed! All these comments are made available to the researchers, so that they improve what they have written, either for a second submission in the same journal post editing, or for some other more suitable journal. The process of going through a research manuscript is not restricted to a single reviewer, no, there is a team of 3 or 5 individuals who go through it and give their thorough comments, before saying yay or nay. Majority wins, as it should.
What helps these journals’ editorial boards to reject so elaborately? Is it that the scientific journals are making more money than their counterparts in the creative writing world? Or do they have more staff members on pay-roll, to manage such detailed rejection analysis? The secret seems to be the concept of voluntary peer-review. In fact, peer-review is such a critical element of the scientific world that journals are considered good or bad depending on whether they are peer-reviewed or not. Each journal has a coterie of voluntary peer-reviewers - many of whom are past contributors. Remarkably, a substantial number of these reviewers may have got their papers rejected by this same journal. How strongly effort is valued in the world of science! And how impersonal is the rejection in this field! Rejected, yet respected. It is something that I have liked best in this whole research paper publication journey.
Coming back to the world of creative writing, how can some of these concepts be adopted? What is holding back the publishing industry from changing the status quo.
Not having sufficient number of volunteers? Well, I am sure if a recruitment-drive is initiated for volunteer readers with a list of their favourite genres, quite a substantial crowd of worthy individuals can be gathered. With a projected worth of INR 739 billion by 2020 (as per the Economic Times*), the Indian book market has numerous voracious readers to buttress my faith that voluntary peer reviewers will not be tough to find.
Could it be the fear of plagiarism? Well, that fear is even worse in the science world - with unpublished data that took not just man-hours but even money to collect. How is the science world tackling this? Sharing of copy-disabled PDFs, use of plagiarism checking software and a bank-like KYC of their volunteers are some of the options that come to the top of my mind. Better heads than mine and a deeper analysis than this will assuredly yield more fool-proof methods.
Is it the worry of time and effort wastage for a problem that is non-existent in the eyes of the publishers? Well then, the publishers do need to take note of this, internalize this challenge and realize that it needs a mutually beneficial way out - for the issue of unexplained or inadequately explained rejection is critical for the content creators.
In the meanwhile, should one focus on getting a Harvard degree or trying to become a celebrity?
***
Views expressed above are entirely personal
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/...
“This doesn't feel like the right project for me at this time. I'm so sorry, but this is a pass for me.”
Kind words, but they cut you deep if you are a writer trying to get your book published. Put in a single, simple term- rejection. In the life of each author comes not one but several moments of such rejections. It stings, it hurts, it disappoints, and sometimes it even demoralises. And why shouldn’t it? There we are, our souls laid bare on paper, invested in our story and deeply in love with the characters we worked to bring to this world, only to know (from those whose opinions matter) that they aren’t good enough!
The question ‘So why was I rejected again?’ arises with each query rejection, with no easy answers. The authors are usually left wondering seriously about their incapability at writing or crafting a plot, taking shots in the dark, torturing themselves.
The reason is the complete absence of a clear-cut rejection mail in most cases, whereas in some cases, the wordings of such a mail are so generic that they provide little guidance to the author. Several publication houses, in their submission instructions to authors, clearly mention that the absence of a response from them is to be interpreted as a rejection. Some of the others who do take the trouble to respond at the end of 12 weeks indicate how thoroughly they enjoyed going through what you wrote but that presently they are not publishing that genre. Truth be told, such responses (or the lack of them) give the uncomfortable feeling that probably one’s manuscript was not even read through.
Are there parallels to the submission- review and publication process in other fields? Can the book publishing industry adopt some of those practices?
Coming from the field of science, I know that a systematic approach can be adopted which supports the writing journeys of authors all over the world. Publication is a thing in the science world, too. We need to publish research papers in journals that have high citation indices, these indices calculated by Thomas Reuters no less, if we want entry or promotions in good research institutes and gain the respect of our colleagues. Papers in the scientific world are also rejected galore – in fact, it is quite rare for a researcher to not get rejected several times. However, every rejection is meticulously explained, to the depth of pointing out which line number on which page the reviewer had an issue with. Yes, that detailed! All these comments are made available to the researchers, so that they improve what they have written, either for a second submission in the same journal post editing, or for some other more suitable journal. The process of going through a research manuscript is not restricted to a single reviewer, no, there is a team of 3 or 5 individuals who go through it and give their thorough comments, before saying yay or nay. Majority wins, as it should.
What helps these journals’ editorial boards to reject so elaborately? Is it that the scientific journals are making more money than their counterparts in the creative writing world? Or do they have more staff members on pay-roll, to manage such detailed rejection analysis? The secret seems to be the concept of voluntary peer-review. In fact, peer-review is such a critical element of the scientific world that journals are considered good or bad depending on whether they are peer-reviewed or not. Each journal has a coterie of voluntary peer-reviewers - many of whom are past contributors. Remarkably, a substantial number of these reviewers may have got their papers rejected by this same journal. How strongly effort is valued in the world of science! And how impersonal is the rejection in this field! Rejected, yet respected. It is something that I have liked best in this whole research paper publication journey.
Coming back to the world of creative writing, how can some of these concepts be adopted? What is holding back the publishing industry from changing the status quo.
Not having sufficient number of volunteers? Well, I am sure if a recruitment-drive is initiated for volunteer readers with a list of their favourite genres, quite a substantial crowd of worthy individuals can be gathered. With a projected worth of INR 739 billion by 2020 (as per the Economic Times*), the Indian book market has numerous voracious readers to buttress my faith that voluntary peer reviewers will not be tough to find.
Could it be the fear of plagiarism? Well, that fear is even worse in the science world - with unpublished data that took not just man-hours but even money to collect. How is the science world tackling this? Sharing of copy-disabled PDFs, use of plagiarism checking software and a bank-like KYC of their volunteers are some of the options that come to the top of my mind. Better heads than mine and a deeper analysis than this will assuredly yield more fool-proof methods.
Is it the worry of time and effort wastage for a problem that is non-existent in the eyes of the publishers? Well then, the publishers do need to take note of this, internalize this challenge and realize that it needs a mutually beneficial way out - for the issue of unexplained or inadequately explained rejection is critical for the content creators.
In the meanwhile, should one focus on getting a Harvard degree or trying to become a celebrity?
***
Views expressed above are entirely personal
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/...
September 6, 2020
For a Better World
One day I thought I will change the world
To reshape it, reform it, rearrange it, I yearned
A world without hatred, a world without pain
A world of the good, of the happy, of the sane
Edging out the gloom, ushering in the light
No injustice, no hurt, no cruelty in sight
Where man and beast alike take leisure
Winds blow, waters flow in pleasure
A daunting task it was, one at which I failed
At the challenges I encountered, I simply paled
So much of hatred, so much of fear
Those hurt, too scared to let me near
Folly and evil were undeniable, too
The truly good and wise, I found so few!
Those I met were too wary, too tired
Their quota of hope and positivity, expired
The zest in me was dying slowly
And I was blaming self, wholly
For not being strong enough, not being bold
‘Just another failure, aren’t you?’ to self I told
And then came a thought in a flash
Why not build something from scratch
A mini-world of my own
A prototype, a model, to set the tone
For a better world, built one brick at a time
For a better world, a blueprint sublime
Something to be referred, perhaps emulated
When better hands than mine created
A world of dreams, a world of songs
Where every soul belongs
No one is forsaken, pitied or hated
Love flows unchecked, unabated
To reshape it, reform it, rearrange it, I yearned
A world without hatred, a world without pain
A world of the good, of the happy, of the sane
Edging out the gloom, ushering in the light
No injustice, no hurt, no cruelty in sight
Where man and beast alike take leisure
Winds blow, waters flow in pleasure
A daunting task it was, one at which I failed
At the challenges I encountered, I simply paled
So much of hatred, so much of fear
Those hurt, too scared to let me near
Folly and evil were undeniable, too
The truly good and wise, I found so few!
Those I met were too wary, too tired
Their quota of hope and positivity, expired
The zest in me was dying slowly
And I was blaming self, wholly
For not being strong enough, not being bold
‘Just another failure, aren’t you?’ to self I told
And then came a thought in a flash
Why not build something from scratch
A mini-world of my own
A prototype, a model, to set the tone
For a better world, built one brick at a time
For a better world, a blueprint sublime
Something to be referred, perhaps emulated
When better hands than mine created
A world of dreams, a world of songs
Where every soul belongs
No one is forsaken, pitied or hated
Love flows unchecked, unabated
August 18, 2020
New Indian Authors Club: Of The Authors, By The Authors, For The Authors
Writing, I believe, is something much more than a hobby. It's, how shall I put it, a calling? No.. more than that. It's a compulsion. Yes, that's what. A writer cannot not write, you see. But then it should be okay if no one read what was written? It shouldn't matter if one's book was not published, not read, not flying off the shelves, not in its second and third print, not being dissected by the critics. Hah! Now here's the catch! Most writers are not content with merely filling their diary pages. Having put bits and pieces of their souls on the paper, most writers do seek acceptance, resonance, approval, validation and endorsement.
And this journey, from writing one’s first page to reading one’s millionth review, is a long one. An excruciatingly tough one, too. What better than to traverse this path in the company of other fellow writers? What better than to have the comforting thought that one is not alone? What better than to have a safety net below you and a shield in front of you made of hands joined together? What better than to get through this journey with smiles and chuckles?
And what better than to have all of the above and more for true and not just a dream or a fantasy! The New Indian Authors Club is all this and much more than all this – #NIACLUB is a platform where new and aspiring authors are ushered with open arms. In this clan of authors, mutual goodwill and support reign supreme, with each helping the other to grow some more every day. It is a place of positivity, a spot of sustenance. It is what I call in my ecological jargon, a water hole where members of the author species congregate!
Each of us here at the NIACLUB has different skills, different viewpoints, and different experiences. From mischief and comedy to philosophy and realist literature, from beta reading to video trailers, from practical queries to whimsical quotes, from interviews to reviews – members of the NIACLUB cover quite the gamut. So different we are from each other, but what holds us together is this thought that
Together, we can grow!
Together, we can make a difference!
So let’s join hands, all you indie authors out there! Let’s join hands so we can change our worlds with what we write, and do it more easily than done alone!
And this journey, from writing one’s first page to reading one’s millionth review, is a long one. An excruciatingly tough one, too. What better than to traverse this path in the company of other fellow writers? What better than to have the comforting thought that one is not alone? What better than to have a safety net below you and a shield in front of you made of hands joined together? What better than to get through this journey with smiles and chuckles?
And what better than to have all of the above and more for true and not just a dream or a fantasy! The New Indian Authors Club is all this and much more than all this – #NIACLUB is a platform where new and aspiring authors are ushered with open arms. In this clan of authors, mutual goodwill and support reign supreme, with each helping the other to grow some more every day. It is a place of positivity, a spot of sustenance. It is what I call in my ecological jargon, a water hole where members of the author species congregate!
Each of us here at the NIACLUB has different skills, different viewpoints, and different experiences. From mischief and comedy to philosophy and realist literature, from beta reading to video trailers, from practical queries to whimsical quotes, from interviews to reviews – members of the NIACLUB cover quite the gamut. So different we are from each other, but what holds us together is this thought that
Together, we can grow!
Together, we can make a difference!
So let’s join hands, all you indie authors out there! Let’s join hands so we can change our worlds with what we write, and do it more easily than done alone!
August 9, 2020
The Art and Science of Writing
Written: Wednesday, 13 June 2007
RAMBLINGS OF AN AMATEUR AUTHOR
Many people may tell you that writing a book is one tiny piece of cake for a person of your potentialities.
(“Your English is darned good….why do you waste your time like this….write something….an essay, or a story of some sort….it’ll be easy for someone like you who’s read so much…..” etc. etc.)
Take my advice, and do not believe them. But let's begin at the beginning and not the second chatper.
You might ask me (and I wouldn’t blame you for a minute) why at all one should want to write a book. Well – why shouldn’t one? After all, it is as good a way to pass your time or earn your living as any other. Perhaps it is better than most. It offers self-employment benefits – there are no bosses (er, the point is debatable, publishers have been known to wag the commanding finger at the poor author’s nose several times); you can work from home and is as such comfortable; and of course if you can assess the readers’ market well, you can fill your coffers up to the brim – some authors positively own a mint. And it hardly has any professional hazards.
If you go on to assess, writing a book should be a bed of roses.
It isn’t.
You see, you don’t know the bumps on the road unless you begin to take a ride. On similar lines, you don’t begin to get familiar with the hitches of writing a book unless you begin to write it.
The roses are few and far between, the thorns strewn aplenty.
But what is life without a royal challenge, as the adman’s line goes. I have decided to take up this challenge and have made up my mind to proceed very methodically towards the fulfillment of it.
Actually, to be frank, I have wondered many a time what it would be like to actually write a book. Having read quite a bit and having admired so many authors, one at times wants to know how these gifted men and women of pen think up things.
Well, they say there is no experience like first-hand experience. Why not let’s write a nice little book ourselves and find out for ourselves?
As I have made clear in the string of words above, writing a book is a paramount problem, and I am fully prepared to tackle it. If I have decided to catch the bull by its horns, (rather uncomfortable for the bull, by the way) I must make fool-proof plans. These plans will no doubt take the form of an essay or a treatise on the art and science of Bibliogeny
However, it will do little to help anybody except the writer herself, and is as such a very selfish piece of work (just like all good pieces of work, I dare say). I am going to convince my publisher (if I manage to find one) to print a statutory warning on the front leaf – NOT MEANT AS A GUIDE IN WRITING
All preliminaries taken care of, I may embark on this literary sojourn with a clear conscience.
The questions we need to answer follow the four wives and the husband formula - the Why, the What, the When (omitting the Which) and the How. Here goes the first one...
WHY TO WRITE A BOOK?
There are several reasons for this.
Foremost being that I have just resigned from a decent job. And this because I had a fight with the boss that Patel Chowk was 15.7 kilometers from Mall Road. I had proof that this was so – an auto rickshaw driver’s tariff meter said so. But the opinionated what-not that my boss was, he refused to believe. He kept on insisting that the distance was 16. 1 kilometers and no less. Now, discrepancies like that, in scientific laboratories, are just not tolerated. And I would have tolerated it, had my boss not accompanied his denials with the continuous picking of his nose. Now if there is one thing I never want to know is what the olfactory tunnel of my boss, or for that matter anyone, contains in the nature of wallpaper or plastering so to say. And anyways, it was a matter of principle, not my plain silliness. Pity was, the boss felt different. That afternoon I left the lab, red in the face, racking my brains to come up with the name of a suitable lawyer who would help me launch a case against the big tyrant so that I could prove legally that the distance was 15.7 kilometers and not a picometer more. Better still, I wanted to contest the next Assembly elections so that I could raise my voice against pig-headed bosses in the Parliament.
That was then. I have cooled down considerably now, but I still don’t feel kindly towards the old man and his productive nose. I guess time doesn’t always mellow things.
Anyway, the end-result of the skirmish was that I was left jobless with plenty of time on my hands.
Another important argument in my favour is that I have always had a good knack for vocabulary and grammar. It is not just I who says so. If you want proof, an old gaunt English teacher of my hometown’s best school will give you a rare smile at the mention of my name, nod her head satisfactorily and tell you there aren’t many like me. She used to give the same rare smiles when my essays came up for correction on her table.
Simply knowing English is not enough. It is by no means a rara avis. So many others know the language. A company clerk, a press-reporter, a call-center guy and so many others. I believe there are more Indians in India knowing English than in England itself.
So what I was saying was that simply knowing English was insufficient.
A writer, I believe is set apart by his imaginative thinking. His thinking must be original, coherent and interesting (to most, at least). This thinking power sprouts from an author’s extraordinarily strong observation propinquity and a very fertile imagination. Ask any author, and he will tell you that his viewpoint on normal things is rather super-normal.
Now I am a fully qualified thinker. The aforementioned boss would give half his salary to get me certified as a moony-eyed daydreamer who’d rather lie on a couch than work. And I look at things differently, too. If you will notice my photograph on the backside or inside leaf of my publications, you will notice a very noticeable squint.
All the above points established, the vital point comes next. I may tell you that while I love literature and all that, I have actually been a student of the sciences. Now scientific training adds an extra something to your brain (Arts and Commerce, don’t whet your knives for me. I’m sure you, too, would add, and not subtract). It makes you look at every thing with logic and reason and you tend to adopt a clearer viewpoint of a problem. As I keep reiterating that book writing is a headache, a cut-and-dried scientific brain must be called upon to catch the bull’s horns.
WHAT TO WRITE?
This question logically follows next. One must decide what one has to write. Several authors opine that writing should come from the heart, that there is no conscious decision as to what to write, and that on many occasions a book just writes itself.
I beg to disagree. If any one of these authors had a heart like mine, he’d understand. Why, my heart is one of the most treacherous hearts of all mankind. It will never ever stay put on any one thing for a long time. It will always have an amicable difference of opinion with my brain, it will insist that it is right and when it has been proved wrong, will take up another Pandora’s Box with amazing alacrity. The upshot is that my heart can never guide me correctly as to what to write.
On the other hand, wait a minute. My heart has so often lead me straight into trouble that I may take the direction 180 degrees from what my heart says and be safe.
But that’s neither here nor there. I must make a conscious decision, independent of my heart.
And my book is certainly in no mood to write itself. If it had been, ladies and gentlemen, I wouldn’t be writing this prequel to writing a book.
Hence, we come to my second obstacle.
People write books on anything.
In accordance with the most approved scientific manner, I am listing down these various topics.
-Classics
-Cookery books
-Thrillers
-Romance
-Travel books
-Memoirs
-Murder mysteries
-Self-enhancement
-Books to understand yourself
-Books to understand the opposite sex
-Books to understand the world
These are what are popularly referred to as the various genres of literature.
What I want to put across is that there is so much choice. One may take one’s pick and still manage not to disturb the established ones or tense the newcomers.
Easier said than done.
Taking one’s pick, I mean.
You’ll see what I mean as I work my way down the list.
There is a major problem with Classics. Despite my claims to knowledge in English, I still have not grasped the actual meaning of the term ‘Classics.’ What are they? I have read my fair share of Shakespeare and Iliad and Charles Dickens and Ayn Rand and have drawn the conclusion that the critics have massively appreciated them all. This indicates that the writer did not intend his book to be called a classic. It became one when all the readers appreciated it, and when the critics declared it so, unanimously.
This puts writing a classic rather out of the question. I do not even know any critics. How can I know their likes and dislikes? And any way, two critics seldom agree on any one thing – so how can the whole lot of them be convinced that I’m the best? Rather a tall order that!
Next in line were cookery books, I think. Well, if you leave me on an island, all alone like Robinson Crusoe, may be then I can cook to save my life. Otherwise, there are greater chances of India winning a one-day international cricket series in West Indies. But folks, it will be doing me a great favour if you didn’t go and relate this paragraph to my grandmother. She is rather a sweetheart and still has the ambition that I will someday make somebody a nice wife, (wo)manning his kitchen round the clock.
And tell me, anyways, what good have cookery books ever done to anyone? Half the ingredients sound exotic to the ears, as you have been buying them at the grocer’s under one alias and they appear in print under another a.k.a. Once you have managed to decipher what has to go in, seventeen and a half other troubles crop up. They say the onions have to be fried until a perfect golden brown. Have they provided a shade card alongside for reference? No sir, they have not! So in goes the next lot of stuff into onions of a doubtful hue. And so out goes the idea of writing cookery books.
A Thriller. Hmmm….something may, just may come out of it. A thriller sells you know. It is what rakes in the moolah. People rather like to sit on the edge of their seats (defying all rules of Physics – unstable equilibrium and all that - in the process) and flip the pages of a nice bloody, action-packed piece of fiction. The grosser, the gorier and the more gruesome a thriller, the better – and this, ladies and gentlemen is the thumb rule on which thriller writers operate. Knowing this, I can manage my way pretty smoothly. I hope.
I may just think up an ingenious plot to assassinate the Indian Prime Minister. The assassin will have to be a member of a terrorist group (most un-original, but no other option. The common man doesn’t want frequent elections and will not go about bumping off heads of the nation). I shall have a female assassin, someone young and personable, who shall get into the PM’s….hell’s bells. How will she get into the PM’s inner circle? You see, this requires some sort of inside information. Now I am sure the state the PM Office is in after all these bomb blasts and terrorist attacks, it will never allow me inside to do the necessary research work, thinking I might be the very same female assassin that I have been thinking out loud about. Oh well…no matter how I die, I’d rather not die a mislabeled terrorist!
Chuck it. Let me think of a love story.
Nah….the more personal a love story is, the better. You can’t just think of it. What you felt, what you experienced, what you underwent etc, etc make for far more interesting reading than a story plucked out of thin air.
Now that is the snag. That is the one major mourn of my life. No boyfriends to speak of, just crushes that change every week..Oh dear!
Let me see, I have crossed four of my list-toppers (see what I mean: writing a book is a pain.) Travel books are rather a safe bet. I may put up for records’ sake that I have traveled a good deal. Mountains, deserts, forests, beaches and cities – I’ve been there, seen that and done those.
However, I’m sure to face some stiff competition from members of a particular species. This species positively smells out regions worth traveling. No part of the earth is immune from these creatures. Once a member of this clan settles onto one point on the map, he proceeds to give the benefit of observing this scenic beauty to one and all, relying on a gadget popularly called as ‘the third eye’.
The Indian Film Industry directors, I mean. They have an uncanny knack of nosing out locales. Be it the North Pole or the Sahara Desert, Mount Everest top or Dead Sea bottom – you can bet on it that their crew will come, battling all odds.
What with half the movies being screened sans entertainment tax, who would bother reading a travel book?
My memoirs. Am I old enough to write them? Well, there isn’t any lower age limit to start writing it. Life ain’t supposed to be long, life oughtta be Big (Hrishida’s ‘Anand’ says so). Mine has been, or at least I think so. My post-graduation course was a lovely time of my life, what with a great gang of friends and a number of trips in the jungle to stuff field ecology into the little grey cells. It could really make for interesting reading, the good times we shared out there in the jungles. You know, the safaris and the treks and the rain and the Antaksharis and the dancing and the jokes and the general camaraderie. What quirks of human nature you get to observe on occasions like this is a psychologist’s envy and your delight. Tell you what, if you really want to get to know someone well, marry him, or take him with you on a jungle trip (youngsters do not misconstrue!).
However, here too, is a snag. If I write my post-graduation reminiscences, I will end up dead within two days of the book being published. Er, okay. Not exactly that, but something horribly close to that. Reason being, very simply, that I know too much! You see, in my college days, I had been a sympathetic type of person. I encouraged people to unburden themselves and listened to them. This resulted in my knowing more about the underbelly of the class than anybody else did. Only I knew that A loved B very much but B loved C, who frankly hated D but couldn’t live without E. However, come the second semester and A had begun to admire D and B and C had formed a couple and G had entered the scene. Whoa, did I skip F?
You get the hang of it, don’t you. Thing is, it was all 2-3 years ago. B and D have got married and they wouldn’t want each other to know about the other alphabets of their pasts, would they?
You might suggest that I can doctor the facts a little bit. But that’s the problem with reminiscences. We memoir-writers sort of take an oath to speak all the truth and nothing but the truth. The bare, naked, truth. Well, there goes the sixth item – killed, so that some secrets could live on (boy, do I write with a dramatic pen!)
Murder mysteries were next on the line weren’t they? Between you and me, I have proceeded to write no less than two separate plots of murder. In one, I managed to pen 13 chapters, imagine that, before I developed a terrible distaste for my characters. They became the worst characters ever imagined by an author – dull, insipid and very boring. I could not get the plot in place, either. All in all, it is a most wasteful creation, never likely to see the light of day. No wonder they say 13 is unlucky. I valiantly went on to write the second half-formed plot, vowing that this time Chapter 14 would follow 12. This time, disgust set in in the third chapter itself. In fact, it was then that I banged my electronic notebook shut, stopped pulling my hair out and decided to approach my problem scientifically. To cut a long story short, ladies and gentlemen, I decided to write this prequel out.
I think I can safely move on to self-enhancement books. These are nutritious books indeed, having to do with stuff like cheese and chicken soup. Though they are not cookery books in the least, they end up having as much use. These books take it upon themselves to tell you exactly how you should stir, sit, speak, sneeze, spit, snarl, etc to get exactly what you want.
Now…..hey wait a minute. Why am I going on with the list? If I have gone so ahead (thirteen chapters, no less, and two separate plots) in my career as a mystery storywriter, it is almost a cinch that I’ll make it to the finish line. Why, it is logical, almost mathematical – I definitely have a higher probability of succeeding in it than in any other form of writing.
I told you, didn’t I, that science helps.
The next question that poses itself is no mean question. It deals with the mysterious fourth dimension of our lives, friends - the time element. It deals with, to be specific, the question when to write.
WHEN TO WRITE A BOOK
No author worth his salt will give the statement that he can write anytime he damn pleases. I tell you, a book often has a will of its own. It will not allow you to write it if it does not have the mood. You will sit before the computer screen and jab away at the keys as much as you please. However, if the time is not right, nothing worthwhile will appear in black over the white sheet. You will read it, take a deep breath of disappointment, stretch your arms, rub your eyes and press the delete key all the way. On other occasions, you’d be tempted to reformat the entire drive.
There will be times worse than the incidents above. You will simply not want to sit before the screen at all. You will create every possible excuse for not doing so. You would virtuously try helping mother in the kitchen, run an errand for father, or listen to grandmother eloquently blackmailing you to agree to get married. In fact, anything except sitting down in front of that dreaded screen. At times like this, a hardware crash can give such a secret guilty pleasure that it can only be savoured and not described.
However, there are good times, too. There is another side to the coin, when the urge to write suddenly inundates you. Your mind becomes a virtual hymenopteran’s abode (I couldn’t make up my mind which among an anthill and a honeycomb was busier-actually didn’t want to get bitten or stung). Ideas flood in from all directions possible and vie with each other for your attention. Each insists on being jotted down first, threatening to pass away into oblivion if you don’t. You eke your way out of this situation, typing at 1000 words a minute, creating such a cacophony with the keys that banshees want to materialize and provide the vocals in this devil’s orchestra. I think most authors refer to this as a Burst of Creativity.
Naturally, you do not end up writing every single one of your inspirations. Some of them do end up fading away. But boy, do they fade away gloriously! The point constantly keeps nagging that whatever you had missed was a wonderful idea – a king among ideas. You are tricked by this treacherous feeling into thinking deeply about this idea of ideas, trying to clutch at it mentally. You try gouging your brains out. I have heard our good old human brain harbours memories of our ancestral avatars as fish, frog or reptile. Well, you are more likely to resurrect one of these reminiscences rather than remembering that elusive idea.
You get a funny feeling in your stomach that you are just at the point of grasping that flitting thought. This feeling builds up to a climax in a few seconds – and dies down into a gurgling anti-climax. The remorseless idea relentlessly punishes you for forgetting it in the first place. However, once it has satisfied itself that you have atoned enough for the Eighth Sin of Forgetfulness, it floats back daintily into the folds of the cerebellum and announces its presence with lofty grandiloquence when you are least expecting it. And then comes the biggest anti-climax of it all. The idea was never worth all the trouble at all! Alas, as they say in Shakespearean tragedies – woe is me!
But all this meandering discussion about a flighty idea is taking me away from my intended query. A trained scientific mind does not cater for digression like this.
The errand was to seek the best time to write a book.
Now for me, this time has mostly been the middle of the night. All my literary glands are hyperactive at this hour and secrete the hormone of eloquence into my blood. Now there is no hard and fast rule as such – I may get the ‘urge’ at any other time – but nighttime generally is righttime.
One of the major attributes of this period of inky darkness is its inherent secrecy. And why is secrecy important?
In a place like India, curiosity is a major ingredient of nearly every mind. If you tell an average middle-class Indian that curiosity killed the cat, he is likely to retort that a cat had nine lives. Nearly everybody has a Ph.D. in the art of nosing.
Yeah, so where were we? Right, we were discussing the importance of secrecy in my life as an author. Now, it makes me horribly self-conscious to have someone know I am up to something like writing a book. I remember an occasion when I had scribbled some stuff in my diary. Something related to what I had wanted to do to the truculent maid who had prevented me from my daily diet of purloined pickles. Trouble had come when my father had managed to steal a look. At my diary contents, I mean. He also went on to read the stuff out – and then followed an erudite discussion in my house as to how my childish writing exposed my inner self.
I can still remember the heat and colour as both had risen up my neck to cover my face until I looked positively like a tomato. Who likes his innermost-self bandied about in public, open to comment?
Result has been my abnormal secrecy regarding anything I write. I had even felt uneasy about my school assignments for a long time. Teachers had to literally pull the exercise book from my hands in my junior classes. At times, I wonder if I will have the courage to take my book to the publisher. I might just mail it to him using an alias or something. Oh hell…no point crossing bridges before coming to them.
Anyways, we have conclusively established that most nights and other sundry moments of complete solitary existence are the best for writing.
The next question is one of a very basic nature. It has its roots embedded within the very essence of book writing.
HOW TO WRITE A BOOK?
What a silly query, you’d say. An author who doesn’t know how to write a book ought not to be called an author.
But wait a minute. The question is sensible. It pertains to two main aspects of writing – the language and the plot. Both are the mainstays of any interesting story, and if a writer fails in either, he may as well kiss his career goodbye.
Let’s tackle language first.
I have mentioned before, that one has to have a good command over the language. This indicates that the writer should be capable of writing smoothly and freely, without encountering literary roadblocks. His writing should be an interesting potpourri of words (that are not too difficult and too mundane) with a sprinkling of suitable idioms and proverbs which spice up creation.
Of course, an author enjoys a certain leeway, a freedom in writing off- beat English. He may have characters that speak wrong grammar or prefer using certain proverbs. This serves to make the writing fresh and original. I have even encountered an author who wrote completely in the present tense. Rather disconcerting, but an interesting effort it was.
But an author must beware of the danger of repetition. It must be avoided. What I mean is, an author, almost unknowingly and instinctively, tends to possess a set words and proverbs, which he uses most frequently. Now the language English is so very propitious as to help avoid pitfalls like this. One must consciously avail oneself of this facility.
Vocabulary is not the only constituent of language. The arrangement of words, or in other words, the writing style of an author sets him apart. This style is something that must be original. It is very much the stamp or identifying fingerprint that an author has. As such, an inexperienced author who is bumbling away on his newfound path of self-expression must avoid the danger of unconscious aping. This danger pertains dangerously to me. I have been such an avid reader of Agatha Christie and such a devoted admirer of the character of Mrs. Ariadne Oliver that I instinctively write with the same hint of verbal dysentery, as she tends to speak. I mean the tendency of writing very long and winding sentences with lots of commas and semi colons such that somebody reading it aloud will have to make an untimely pause to take breath. Now the scare of being accused of aping is so strong in my heart that I constantly read and re-read everything I have written with a critical eye, weeding away words and expressions that may land me in trouble.
This point amply established I shall move on to the plot. Plot of a story is like the soul of a living thing. Story without a plot isn’t a story at all. To all intents and purposes, a plot of a story is what comes out of the writer’s heart. There are all sorts of plots. Some based on truth, some imagination, some experienced by the author, some vicariously observed. But whatever be the plot, an author must do his homework properly. Book writing is not an exercise for the really homebound soul. Some scrupulous and painstaking research work is vital so that a plot becomes as accurate as possible. If the plot, for example, is set in a certain city, the author must be familiar with its by-lanes and betel shops so as to bring in the local colour. For instance, I have tried setting my two plots of murder mystery, one in Simla and another in the Kumaouns. I have personally been to neither place. And so the further development of the plots have been adjourned till so and so time when I tour the arena.
Of course, being a student of the sciences as I am, establishing accuracy should not be a very difficult task for me. Though one will have to strike a balance between too much detail and absolute sketchiness.
Moreover, this discussion of details reminds me of another aspect of writing. The length of the story. There is no hard and fast rule to determine this, but an author should keep this in mind that nothing is more tiresome to read than an over-stretched plot. Plots are plots; don’t make elastic bands of them. Else, they will snap out of the reader’s zone of interest.
Another thing or two about the veracity of plots. I believe no matter how imaginary a story may be, its roots are in firm reality. Characters are nearly always real people, some whom we writers know intimately while some may be strangers even.
However, the thoughts that these people have and the speeches that they make are very similar to the author’s own mindset. I have noticed that at least one character, perhaps the main protagonist has an uncanny similarity with the writer himself or his image of himself. Which, incidentally, brings me to what I set about to debate.
How much of himself does an author reveal, deliberately or unconsciously, when he writes?
An author intending to write his autobiography some day, reveals only as much as he intends to. Or none at all. Inexperienced authors, or authors too passionately immersed in their task to notice, or authors who don’t mind this form of self-exhibition proceed to become thoroughly transparent for the intelligent reader.
And that, folks, is the furthest that I am going. If I reveal the magic formula of how to get a plot any more, well…a girl has to make a living after all!
Hey, the problem doesn’t end here. Simply writing a manuscript is not the end of the journey. Another problem crops up – that of giving the finishing touches to what you’ve written.
HOW TO EDIT A BOOK?
A manuscript cannot do without rigorous editing. There are spelling mistakes to be taken care of. There are grammatical errors to be corrected, and so on and so forth.
Several authors, me included…I hope you will pardon me for including myself in the club of Authors, but I will be one, soon….and I have already started feeling like one…so where were we?....yeah….several authors do not write all their chapters in one order. The paragraphs of a storyline may appear in print in one order, and may have been written in another. This, translated into understandable English, means that a quintessential author writes a few lines, reads it, inserts a few lines in between, comes another day, deletes what he had inserted and puts in some different words. In other words, writing is a very, very dynamic process. One thinks of one thing, and then follows that thought with another, and then suddenly realizes that three chapters ago, he had written something exactly opposite to the present thought. Also, there is always the danger of forgetting the names of the characters. If I begin calling the heroine Ramona, and then suddenly refer to her as Mala in the 8th chapter, the reader is bound to get confused.
While writing a mystery story, one has to take in the scrupulous details of clues and hints and innuendoes, etc. It is easy to miss out, or re-write or wrongly-write something here, too. It is also essential to check that what you have fitted in between, dovetails exactly with the lines before and after. In essence, without more ado, I’ve proved this point that EDITING is NECESSARY.
And now, folks, there is one query, the answer to which even a trained Scientific Mind cannot come up with. It is a query, the answer to which many a pathetic, pitiable author has not been able to come up with.
iviz.
HOW TO PUBLISH A BOOK?
RAMBLINGS OF AN AMATEUR AUTHOR
Many people may tell you that writing a book is one tiny piece of cake for a person of your potentialities.
(“Your English is darned good….why do you waste your time like this….write something….an essay, or a story of some sort….it’ll be easy for someone like you who’s read so much…..” etc. etc.)
Take my advice, and do not believe them. But let's begin at the beginning and not the second chatper.
You might ask me (and I wouldn’t blame you for a minute) why at all one should want to write a book. Well – why shouldn’t one? After all, it is as good a way to pass your time or earn your living as any other. Perhaps it is better than most. It offers self-employment benefits – there are no bosses (er, the point is debatable, publishers have been known to wag the commanding finger at the poor author’s nose several times); you can work from home and is as such comfortable; and of course if you can assess the readers’ market well, you can fill your coffers up to the brim – some authors positively own a mint. And it hardly has any professional hazards.
If you go on to assess, writing a book should be a bed of roses.
It isn’t.
You see, you don’t know the bumps on the road unless you begin to take a ride. On similar lines, you don’t begin to get familiar with the hitches of writing a book unless you begin to write it.
The roses are few and far between, the thorns strewn aplenty.
But what is life without a royal challenge, as the adman’s line goes. I have decided to take up this challenge and have made up my mind to proceed very methodically towards the fulfillment of it.
Actually, to be frank, I have wondered many a time what it would be like to actually write a book. Having read quite a bit and having admired so many authors, one at times wants to know how these gifted men and women of pen think up things.
Well, they say there is no experience like first-hand experience. Why not let’s write a nice little book ourselves and find out for ourselves?
As I have made clear in the string of words above, writing a book is a paramount problem, and I am fully prepared to tackle it. If I have decided to catch the bull by its horns, (rather uncomfortable for the bull, by the way) I must make fool-proof plans. These plans will no doubt take the form of an essay or a treatise on the art and science of Bibliogeny
However, it will do little to help anybody except the writer herself, and is as such a very selfish piece of work (just like all good pieces of work, I dare say). I am going to convince my publisher (if I manage to find one) to print a statutory warning on the front leaf – NOT MEANT AS A GUIDE IN WRITING
All preliminaries taken care of, I may embark on this literary sojourn with a clear conscience.
The questions we need to answer follow the four wives and the husband formula - the Why, the What, the When (omitting the Which) and the How. Here goes the first one...
WHY TO WRITE A BOOK?
There are several reasons for this.
Foremost being that I have just resigned from a decent job. And this because I had a fight with the boss that Patel Chowk was 15.7 kilometers from Mall Road. I had proof that this was so – an auto rickshaw driver’s tariff meter said so. But the opinionated what-not that my boss was, he refused to believe. He kept on insisting that the distance was 16. 1 kilometers and no less. Now, discrepancies like that, in scientific laboratories, are just not tolerated. And I would have tolerated it, had my boss not accompanied his denials with the continuous picking of his nose. Now if there is one thing I never want to know is what the olfactory tunnel of my boss, or for that matter anyone, contains in the nature of wallpaper or plastering so to say. And anyways, it was a matter of principle, not my plain silliness. Pity was, the boss felt different. That afternoon I left the lab, red in the face, racking my brains to come up with the name of a suitable lawyer who would help me launch a case against the big tyrant so that I could prove legally that the distance was 15.7 kilometers and not a picometer more. Better still, I wanted to contest the next Assembly elections so that I could raise my voice against pig-headed bosses in the Parliament.
That was then. I have cooled down considerably now, but I still don’t feel kindly towards the old man and his productive nose. I guess time doesn’t always mellow things.
Anyway, the end-result of the skirmish was that I was left jobless with plenty of time on my hands.
Another important argument in my favour is that I have always had a good knack for vocabulary and grammar. It is not just I who says so. If you want proof, an old gaunt English teacher of my hometown’s best school will give you a rare smile at the mention of my name, nod her head satisfactorily and tell you there aren’t many like me. She used to give the same rare smiles when my essays came up for correction on her table.
Simply knowing English is not enough. It is by no means a rara avis. So many others know the language. A company clerk, a press-reporter, a call-center guy and so many others. I believe there are more Indians in India knowing English than in England itself.
So what I was saying was that simply knowing English was insufficient.
A writer, I believe is set apart by his imaginative thinking. His thinking must be original, coherent and interesting (to most, at least). This thinking power sprouts from an author’s extraordinarily strong observation propinquity and a very fertile imagination. Ask any author, and he will tell you that his viewpoint on normal things is rather super-normal.
Now I am a fully qualified thinker. The aforementioned boss would give half his salary to get me certified as a moony-eyed daydreamer who’d rather lie on a couch than work. And I look at things differently, too. If you will notice my photograph on the backside or inside leaf of my publications, you will notice a very noticeable squint.
All the above points established, the vital point comes next. I may tell you that while I love literature and all that, I have actually been a student of the sciences. Now scientific training adds an extra something to your brain (Arts and Commerce, don’t whet your knives for me. I’m sure you, too, would add, and not subtract). It makes you look at every thing with logic and reason and you tend to adopt a clearer viewpoint of a problem. As I keep reiterating that book writing is a headache, a cut-and-dried scientific brain must be called upon to catch the bull’s horns.
WHAT TO WRITE?
This question logically follows next. One must decide what one has to write. Several authors opine that writing should come from the heart, that there is no conscious decision as to what to write, and that on many occasions a book just writes itself.
I beg to disagree. If any one of these authors had a heart like mine, he’d understand. Why, my heart is one of the most treacherous hearts of all mankind. It will never ever stay put on any one thing for a long time. It will always have an amicable difference of opinion with my brain, it will insist that it is right and when it has been proved wrong, will take up another Pandora’s Box with amazing alacrity. The upshot is that my heart can never guide me correctly as to what to write.
On the other hand, wait a minute. My heart has so often lead me straight into trouble that I may take the direction 180 degrees from what my heart says and be safe.
But that’s neither here nor there. I must make a conscious decision, independent of my heart.
And my book is certainly in no mood to write itself. If it had been, ladies and gentlemen, I wouldn’t be writing this prequel to writing a book.
Hence, we come to my second obstacle.
People write books on anything.
In accordance with the most approved scientific manner, I am listing down these various topics.
-Classics
-Cookery books
-Thrillers
-Romance
-Travel books
-Memoirs
-Murder mysteries
-Self-enhancement
-Books to understand yourself
-Books to understand the opposite sex
-Books to understand the world
These are what are popularly referred to as the various genres of literature.
What I want to put across is that there is so much choice. One may take one’s pick and still manage not to disturb the established ones or tense the newcomers.
Easier said than done.
Taking one’s pick, I mean.
You’ll see what I mean as I work my way down the list.
There is a major problem with Classics. Despite my claims to knowledge in English, I still have not grasped the actual meaning of the term ‘Classics.’ What are they? I have read my fair share of Shakespeare and Iliad and Charles Dickens and Ayn Rand and have drawn the conclusion that the critics have massively appreciated them all. This indicates that the writer did not intend his book to be called a classic. It became one when all the readers appreciated it, and when the critics declared it so, unanimously.
This puts writing a classic rather out of the question. I do not even know any critics. How can I know their likes and dislikes? And any way, two critics seldom agree on any one thing – so how can the whole lot of them be convinced that I’m the best? Rather a tall order that!
Next in line were cookery books, I think. Well, if you leave me on an island, all alone like Robinson Crusoe, may be then I can cook to save my life. Otherwise, there are greater chances of India winning a one-day international cricket series in West Indies. But folks, it will be doing me a great favour if you didn’t go and relate this paragraph to my grandmother. She is rather a sweetheart and still has the ambition that I will someday make somebody a nice wife, (wo)manning his kitchen round the clock.
And tell me, anyways, what good have cookery books ever done to anyone? Half the ingredients sound exotic to the ears, as you have been buying them at the grocer’s under one alias and they appear in print under another a.k.a. Once you have managed to decipher what has to go in, seventeen and a half other troubles crop up. They say the onions have to be fried until a perfect golden brown. Have they provided a shade card alongside for reference? No sir, they have not! So in goes the next lot of stuff into onions of a doubtful hue. And so out goes the idea of writing cookery books.
A Thriller. Hmmm….something may, just may come out of it. A thriller sells you know. It is what rakes in the moolah. People rather like to sit on the edge of their seats (defying all rules of Physics – unstable equilibrium and all that - in the process) and flip the pages of a nice bloody, action-packed piece of fiction. The grosser, the gorier and the more gruesome a thriller, the better – and this, ladies and gentlemen is the thumb rule on which thriller writers operate. Knowing this, I can manage my way pretty smoothly. I hope.
I may just think up an ingenious plot to assassinate the Indian Prime Minister. The assassin will have to be a member of a terrorist group (most un-original, but no other option. The common man doesn’t want frequent elections and will not go about bumping off heads of the nation). I shall have a female assassin, someone young and personable, who shall get into the PM’s….hell’s bells. How will she get into the PM’s inner circle? You see, this requires some sort of inside information. Now I am sure the state the PM Office is in after all these bomb blasts and terrorist attacks, it will never allow me inside to do the necessary research work, thinking I might be the very same female assassin that I have been thinking out loud about. Oh well…no matter how I die, I’d rather not die a mislabeled terrorist!
Chuck it. Let me think of a love story.
Nah….the more personal a love story is, the better. You can’t just think of it. What you felt, what you experienced, what you underwent etc, etc make for far more interesting reading than a story plucked out of thin air.
Now that is the snag. That is the one major mourn of my life. No boyfriends to speak of, just crushes that change every week..Oh dear!
Let me see, I have crossed four of my list-toppers (see what I mean: writing a book is a pain.) Travel books are rather a safe bet. I may put up for records’ sake that I have traveled a good deal. Mountains, deserts, forests, beaches and cities – I’ve been there, seen that and done those.
However, I’m sure to face some stiff competition from members of a particular species. This species positively smells out regions worth traveling. No part of the earth is immune from these creatures. Once a member of this clan settles onto one point on the map, he proceeds to give the benefit of observing this scenic beauty to one and all, relying on a gadget popularly called as ‘the third eye’.
The Indian Film Industry directors, I mean. They have an uncanny knack of nosing out locales. Be it the North Pole or the Sahara Desert, Mount Everest top or Dead Sea bottom – you can bet on it that their crew will come, battling all odds.
What with half the movies being screened sans entertainment tax, who would bother reading a travel book?
My memoirs. Am I old enough to write them? Well, there isn’t any lower age limit to start writing it. Life ain’t supposed to be long, life oughtta be Big (Hrishida’s ‘Anand’ says so). Mine has been, or at least I think so. My post-graduation course was a lovely time of my life, what with a great gang of friends and a number of trips in the jungle to stuff field ecology into the little grey cells. It could really make for interesting reading, the good times we shared out there in the jungles. You know, the safaris and the treks and the rain and the Antaksharis and the dancing and the jokes and the general camaraderie. What quirks of human nature you get to observe on occasions like this is a psychologist’s envy and your delight. Tell you what, if you really want to get to know someone well, marry him, or take him with you on a jungle trip (youngsters do not misconstrue!).
However, here too, is a snag. If I write my post-graduation reminiscences, I will end up dead within two days of the book being published. Er, okay. Not exactly that, but something horribly close to that. Reason being, very simply, that I know too much! You see, in my college days, I had been a sympathetic type of person. I encouraged people to unburden themselves and listened to them. This resulted in my knowing more about the underbelly of the class than anybody else did. Only I knew that A loved B very much but B loved C, who frankly hated D but couldn’t live without E. However, come the second semester and A had begun to admire D and B and C had formed a couple and G had entered the scene. Whoa, did I skip F?
You get the hang of it, don’t you. Thing is, it was all 2-3 years ago. B and D have got married and they wouldn’t want each other to know about the other alphabets of their pasts, would they?
You might suggest that I can doctor the facts a little bit. But that’s the problem with reminiscences. We memoir-writers sort of take an oath to speak all the truth and nothing but the truth. The bare, naked, truth. Well, there goes the sixth item – killed, so that some secrets could live on (boy, do I write with a dramatic pen!)
Murder mysteries were next on the line weren’t they? Between you and me, I have proceeded to write no less than two separate plots of murder. In one, I managed to pen 13 chapters, imagine that, before I developed a terrible distaste for my characters. They became the worst characters ever imagined by an author – dull, insipid and very boring. I could not get the plot in place, either. All in all, it is a most wasteful creation, never likely to see the light of day. No wonder they say 13 is unlucky. I valiantly went on to write the second half-formed plot, vowing that this time Chapter 14 would follow 12. This time, disgust set in in the third chapter itself. In fact, it was then that I banged my electronic notebook shut, stopped pulling my hair out and decided to approach my problem scientifically. To cut a long story short, ladies and gentlemen, I decided to write this prequel out.
I think I can safely move on to self-enhancement books. These are nutritious books indeed, having to do with stuff like cheese and chicken soup. Though they are not cookery books in the least, they end up having as much use. These books take it upon themselves to tell you exactly how you should stir, sit, speak, sneeze, spit, snarl, etc to get exactly what you want.
Now…..hey wait a minute. Why am I going on with the list? If I have gone so ahead (thirteen chapters, no less, and two separate plots) in my career as a mystery storywriter, it is almost a cinch that I’ll make it to the finish line. Why, it is logical, almost mathematical – I definitely have a higher probability of succeeding in it than in any other form of writing.
I told you, didn’t I, that science helps.
The next question that poses itself is no mean question. It deals with the mysterious fourth dimension of our lives, friends - the time element. It deals with, to be specific, the question when to write.
WHEN TO WRITE A BOOK
No author worth his salt will give the statement that he can write anytime he damn pleases. I tell you, a book often has a will of its own. It will not allow you to write it if it does not have the mood. You will sit before the computer screen and jab away at the keys as much as you please. However, if the time is not right, nothing worthwhile will appear in black over the white sheet. You will read it, take a deep breath of disappointment, stretch your arms, rub your eyes and press the delete key all the way. On other occasions, you’d be tempted to reformat the entire drive.
There will be times worse than the incidents above. You will simply not want to sit before the screen at all. You will create every possible excuse for not doing so. You would virtuously try helping mother in the kitchen, run an errand for father, or listen to grandmother eloquently blackmailing you to agree to get married. In fact, anything except sitting down in front of that dreaded screen. At times like this, a hardware crash can give such a secret guilty pleasure that it can only be savoured and not described.
However, there are good times, too. There is another side to the coin, when the urge to write suddenly inundates you. Your mind becomes a virtual hymenopteran’s abode (I couldn’t make up my mind which among an anthill and a honeycomb was busier-actually didn’t want to get bitten or stung). Ideas flood in from all directions possible and vie with each other for your attention. Each insists on being jotted down first, threatening to pass away into oblivion if you don’t. You eke your way out of this situation, typing at 1000 words a minute, creating such a cacophony with the keys that banshees want to materialize and provide the vocals in this devil’s orchestra. I think most authors refer to this as a Burst of Creativity.
Naturally, you do not end up writing every single one of your inspirations. Some of them do end up fading away. But boy, do they fade away gloriously! The point constantly keeps nagging that whatever you had missed was a wonderful idea – a king among ideas. You are tricked by this treacherous feeling into thinking deeply about this idea of ideas, trying to clutch at it mentally. You try gouging your brains out. I have heard our good old human brain harbours memories of our ancestral avatars as fish, frog or reptile. Well, you are more likely to resurrect one of these reminiscences rather than remembering that elusive idea.
You get a funny feeling in your stomach that you are just at the point of grasping that flitting thought. This feeling builds up to a climax in a few seconds – and dies down into a gurgling anti-climax. The remorseless idea relentlessly punishes you for forgetting it in the first place. However, once it has satisfied itself that you have atoned enough for the Eighth Sin of Forgetfulness, it floats back daintily into the folds of the cerebellum and announces its presence with lofty grandiloquence when you are least expecting it. And then comes the biggest anti-climax of it all. The idea was never worth all the trouble at all! Alas, as they say in Shakespearean tragedies – woe is me!
But all this meandering discussion about a flighty idea is taking me away from my intended query. A trained scientific mind does not cater for digression like this.
The errand was to seek the best time to write a book.
Now for me, this time has mostly been the middle of the night. All my literary glands are hyperactive at this hour and secrete the hormone of eloquence into my blood. Now there is no hard and fast rule as such – I may get the ‘urge’ at any other time – but nighttime generally is righttime.
One of the major attributes of this period of inky darkness is its inherent secrecy. And why is secrecy important?
In a place like India, curiosity is a major ingredient of nearly every mind. If you tell an average middle-class Indian that curiosity killed the cat, he is likely to retort that a cat had nine lives. Nearly everybody has a Ph.D. in the art of nosing.
Yeah, so where were we? Right, we were discussing the importance of secrecy in my life as an author. Now, it makes me horribly self-conscious to have someone know I am up to something like writing a book. I remember an occasion when I had scribbled some stuff in my diary. Something related to what I had wanted to do to the truculent maid who had prevented me from my daily diet of purloined pickles. Trouble had come when my father had managed to steal a look. At my diary contents, I mean. He also went on to read the stuff out – and then followed an erudite discussion in my house as to how my childish writing exposed my inner self.
I can still remember the heat and colour as both had risen up my neck to cover my face until I looked positively like a tomato. Who likes his innermost-self bandied about in public, open to comment?
Result has been my abnormal secrecy regarding anything I write. I had even felt uneasy about my school assignments for a long time. Teachers had to literally pull the exercise book from my hands in my junior classes. At times, I wonder if I will have the courage to take my book to the publisher. I might just mail it to him using an alias or something. Oh hell…no point crossing bridges before coming to them.
Anyways, we have conclusively established that most nights and other sundry moments of complete solitary existence are the best for writing.
The next question is one of a very basic nature. It has its roots embedded within the very essence of book writing.
HOW TO WRITE A BOOK?
What a silly query, you’d say. An author who doesn’t know how to write a book ought not to be called an author.
But wait a minute. The question is sensible. It pertains to two main aspects of writing – the language and the plot. Both are the mainstays of any interesting story, and if a writer fails in either, he may as well kiss his career goodbye.
Let’s tackle language first.
I have mentioned before, that one has to have a good command over the language. This indicates that the writer should be capable of writing smoothly and freely, without encountering literary roadblocks. His writing should be an interesting potpourri of words (that are not too difficult and too mundane) with a sprinkling of suitable idioms and proverbs which spice up creation.
Of course, an author enjoys a certain leeway, a freedom in writing off- beat English. He may have characters that speak wrong grammar or prefer using certain proverbs. This serves to make the writing fresh and original. I have even encountered an author who wrote completely in the present tense. Rather disconcerting, but an interesting effort it was.
But an author must beware of the danger of repetition. It must be avoided. What I mean is, an author, almost unknowingly and instinctively, tends to possess a set words and proverbs, which he uses most frequently. Now the language English is so very propitious as to help avoid pitfalls like this. One must consciously avail oneself of this facility.
Vocabulary is not the only constituent of language. The arrangement of words, or in other words, the writing style of an author sets him apart. This style is something that must be original. It is very much the stamp or identifying fingerprint that an author has. As such, an inexperienced author who is bumbling away on his newfound path of self-expression must avoid the danger of unconscious aping. This danger pertains dangerously to me. I have been such an avid reader of Agatha Christie and such a devoted admirer of the character of Mrs. Ariadne Oliver that I instinctively write with the same hint of verbal dysentery, as she tends to speak. I mean the tendency of writing very long and winding sentences with lots of commas and semi colons such that somebody reading it aloud will have to make an untimely pause to take breath. Now the scare of being accused of aping is so strong in my heart that I constantly read and re-read everything I have written with a critical eye, weeding away words and expressions that may land me in trouble.
This point amply established I shall move on to the plot. Plot of a story is like the soul of a living thing. Story without a plot isn’t a story at all. To all intents and purposes, a plot of a story is what comes out of the writer’s heart. There are all sorts of plots. Some based on truth, some imagination, some experienced by the author, some vicariously observed. But whatever be the plot, an author must do his homework properly. Book writing is not an exercise for the really homebound soul. Some scrupulous and painstaking research work is vital so that a plot becomes as accurate as possible. If the plot, for example, is set in a certain city, the author must be familiar with its by-lanes and betel shops so as to bring in the local colour. For instance, I have tried setting my two plots of murder mystery, one in Simla and another in the Kumaouns. I have personally been to neither place. And so the further development of the plots have been adjourned till so and so time when I tour the arena.
Of course, being a student of the sciences as I am, establishing accuracy should not be a very difficult task for me. Though one will have to strike a balance between too much detail and absolute sketchiness.
Moreover, this discussion of details reminds me of another aspect of writing. The length of the story. There is no hard and fast rule to determine this, but an author should keep this in mind that nothing is more tiresome to read than an over-stretched plot. Plots are plots; don’t make elastic bands of them. Else, they will snap out of the reader’s zone of interest.
Another thing or two about the veracity of plots. I believe no matter how imaginary a story may be, its roots are in firm reality. Characters are nearly always real people, some whom we writers know intimately while some may be strangers even.
However, the thoughts that these people have and the speeches that they make are very similar to the author’s own mindset. I have noticed that at least one character, perhaps the main protagonist has an uncanny similarity with the writer himself or his image of himself. Which, incidentally, brings me to what I set about to debate.
How much of himself does an author reveal, deliberately or unconsciously, when he writes?
An author intending to write his autobiography some day, reveals only as much as he intends to. Or none at all. Inexperienced authors, or authors too passionately immersed in their task to notice, or authors who don’t mind this form of self-exhibition proceed to become thoroughly transparent for the intelligent reader.
And that, folks, is the furthest that I am going. If I reveal the magic formula of how to get a plot any more, well…a girl has to make a living after all!
Hey, the problem doesn’t end here. Simply writing a manuscript is not the end of the journey. Another problem crops up – that of giving the finishing touches to what you’ve written.
HOW TO EDIT A BOOK?
A manuscript cannot do without rigorous editing. There are spelling mistakes to be taken care of. There are grammatical errors to be corrected, and so on and so forth.
Several authors, me included…I hope you will pardon me for including myself in the club of Authors, but I will be one, soon….and I have already started feeling like one…so where were we?....yeah….several authors do not write all their chapters in one order. The paragraphs of a storyline may appear in print in one order, and may have been written in another. This, translated into understandable English, means that a quintessential author writes a few lines, reads it, inserts a few lines in between, comes another day, deletes what he had inserted and puts in some different words. In other words, writing is a very, very dynamic process. One thinks of one thing, and then follows that thought with another, and then suddenly realizes that three chapters ago, he had written something exactly opposite to the present thought. Also, there is always the danger of forgetting the names of the characters. If I begin calling the heroine Ramona, and then suddenly refer to her as Mala in the 8th chapter, the reader is bound to get confused.
While writing a mystery story, one has to take in the scrupulous details of clues and hints and innuendoes, etc. It is easy to miss out, or re-write or wrongly-write something here, too. It is also essential to check that what you have fitted in between, dovetails exactly with the lines before and after. In essence, without more ado, I’ve proved this point that EDITING is NECESSARY.
And now, folks, there is one query, the answer to which even a trained Scientific Mind cannot come up with. It is a query, the answer to which many a pathetic, pitiable author has not been able to come up with.
iviz.
HOW TO PUBLISH A BOOK?
July 22, 2020
Of Life and Literature
Whoever said literature portrayed life
Was wrong
For what looks good in stories
Is oft devalued erelong
For
The Heathcliffes of the world
Condemned as cruel and crude
The Howard Roarks
For their dreams, sued
Madame Bovary and Lady Chatterley
Alive in stories but
Shamed and shunned utterly
Into fantasy, escapes the reader
But knows well there are no unicorns
No wonderlands, no Neverlands
Tough reality mourns, scorns, warns
Life stretches, literature reflects but a moment
Reflects like the concave mirror, magnifies virtually
Stretching the moment to cover an entire lifetime
To glorify in words when it couldn't in sooth
To give alternate endings that satisfy
To give endings, when there weren't any.....
Was wrong
For what looks good in stories
Is oft devalued erelong
For
The Heathcliffes of the world
Condemned as cruel and crude
The Howard Roarks
For their dreams, sued
Madame Bovary and Lady Chatterley
Alive in stories but
Shamed and shunned utterly
Into fantasy, escapes the reader
But knows well there are no unicorns
No wonderlands, no Neverlands
Tough reality mourns, scorns, warns
Life stretches, literature reflects but a moment
Reflects like the concave mirror, magnifies virtually
Stretching the moment to cover an entire lifetime
To glorify in words when it couldn't in sooth
To give alternate endings that satisfy
To give endings, when there weren't any.....
July 14, 2020
Perfection is the oldest foe of peace
Anything worth doing is worth doing well, they said..
But perfection is the oldest foe of peace
And failure can be fun….and losses do make you learn
So one day, I promised not to cry
Over dented pottery
Or overrunning paint
Or burnt bread loaves
Or unpunctuated verses
Or off-key tunes
Now I laugh
At my mud-caked fingers
As I smudge the reds and the blues
As over-salted curry stings the tongue
As my voice cracks over high notes
Because it means I could empathize with the potter
And learn how to hold the brush or the ladle or the mike
But perfection is the oldest foe of peace
And failure can be fun….and losses do make you learn
So one day, I promised not to cry
Over dented pottery
Or overrunning paint
Or burnt bread loaves
Or unpunctuated verses
Or off-key tunes
Now I laugh
At my mud-caked fingers
As I smudge the reds and the blues
As over-salted curry stings the tongue
As my voice cracks over high notes
Because it means I could empathize with the potter
And learn how to hold the brush or the ladle or the mike
July 11, 2020
Pure as the driven snow...
Pure as the driven snow...
Was her young heart
But without the deep imprints
Of pain and love and loss
Do stories ever gloss?
Do odes flow? Do verses soar?
Truth be told...
The heart comes into writing
Only after it's broken apart
Was her young heart
But without the deep imprints
Of pain and love and loss
Do stories ever gloss?
Do odes flow? Do verses soar?
Truth be told...
The heart comes into writing
Only after it's broken apart
June 14, 2020
She cooked...
Venom and rice
Spite with spice
Baked a little hate cake
Served a smile so fake
Recipes of ruse
Scheming abuse
Intrigue on the mind
We couldn't have dined
O food! Your ingredient is love
Not salt, sugar, garlic or clove
Seasoned with goodwill if not
Hunger will never be lost
Spite with spice
Baked a little hate cake
Served a smile so fake
Recipes of ruse
Scheming abuse
Intrigue on the mind
We couldn't have dined
O food! Your ingredient is love
Not salt, sugar, garlic or clove
Seasoned with goodwill if not
Hunger will never be lost
June 2, 2020
Of Truth and Perception
The truth shines out, but not always
For she is one proud wench, the Truth
To only the honest seeker does she reveal self
To the hubristic body, to the conceited elf
The truth stays hidden, in sooth....
The truth shines out, but not always...
For perception and not lie is her deadliest foe
Loud thoughts in the head do drown fact
Ill-convictions can heavily distract
And the wind of truth cannot invariably blow
For she is one proud wench, the Truth
To only the honest seeker does she reveal self
To the hubristic body, to the conceited elf
The truth stays hidden, in sooth....
The truth shines out, but not always...
For perception and not lie is her deadliest foe
Loud thoughts in the head do drown fact
Ill-convictions can heavily distract
And the wind of truth cannot invariably blow
May 19, 2020
Lost in Expression
I have sometimes felt that the deepest and purest emotions can never be expressed in words without somewhat adulterating them. That even the best words you use cannot do justice to what you feel, and there is a sense of betrayal when you have written it out. This is the worst challenge I have felt when writing. Anyone else in the same boat as me?
