BENGALURU: Ravinder Singh is an Indian author well-known for his books, I Too Had A Love Story, Like It Happened Yesterday and Your Dreams Are Mine Now, to name a few. Before he took to writing full time, the MBA graduate worked as an IT professional at Infosys and Microsoft. His latest book, The Belated Bachelor Party, is about a reunion between four friends and a trip filled with many fun (mis)adventures. Excerpts from an interview:
What was your trigger for writing the book The Belated Bachelor Party?
The book was inspired by the real life reunion trip of me and my three friends in Europe. We thought we would have a lot of adventures, but we landed up having a lot of misadventures. A lot of these were hilarious. I decided I had to tell the world about how we messed up our carefully planned reunion.
We named this trip our Belated Bachelor Party, because we took it as four married guys. One day on a conference call we realised that we had missed four opportunities to go on a bachelor trip. Once we realized this, we knew we had to fix our mistake.
Do you go back to your old writings? How does it feel to re-read what you had written sometime back?
Very rarely do I go back to my old work. While I’m writing, I of course do go back to previous chapters. At times, I read them aloud to get a feel of the character, as he/she speaks those dialogues. But reading my already published work is very rare with me.
I sometimes do end up reading parts of my old books when people share excerpts from it, or pictures of the pages on their social media, and tag me. When I read something I wrote 10 years ago, there is naturally some nostalgia. I also end up thinking about how far I’ve come as an author, and at times I find it hard to believe that this was something I’d written. The things I write about and my style of writing has evolved over the years.
I’ve written a humorous book, Belated..., and that’s my current frame of mind. Recently, I read a very emotional scene from one of previous books, Your Dreams Are Mine Now, that a fan had shared on their social media story. I could see that there is so much contrast in my writing now and back then. As a creative person, I’m glad that I can I write a variety of things.
Have you always seen yourself as a writer? What has been your inspiration as a writer?
Till the time I became one, I never thought I would be a writer. However, I was always an avid storyteller. Whenever I was in a group of people chatting, I would always make up stories and make people laugh, and they would be all-ears.
My inspiration as a writer is real life. My life and the lives of people around me are full
of stories.
What is the process you undergo while writing?
I don’t really have a set process. I am a very undisciplined author. I write whenever I feel like I am in the mood to write. Of course, when deadlines are approaching, I have to write more because of the pressure. But on an average, I take a year to finish writing a book, of say, 250-odd pages.
To deal with writer’s block, I just take some time off, indulge in things I like, and completely stop thinking about writing. I come back feeling rejuvenated and fresh.
How difficult or easy is it to get published? Have you had to modify or change the content of any of your books for it to get published?
It’s not easy to get published.
If it was, the entire world would be full of published author.
At the end of the day, there are only a certain number of
publishing houses and only a certain number of books can come out. And the sad part is, there are only a certain number of readers who will buy and read your book. Instead of focusing on the difficulties of getting published, I think we should focus on increasing
the readership base in
this country.
No, I’ve never felt the need to modify or change the content of my books. Nothing major that I can think of. Although my first book was rejected by every publishing house, no one told me
to change anything.
Who’s your first reader?
And who are your
biggest critics?
My first readers are a very small group of people. Most of the times, it’s my editor, and my core group who are interested in reading books. There are my fellow authors, who give me advice. There’s also my friends, although I don’t always trust their judgment to be unbiased. So my editor works great.
I leave the job of criticism up to my readers. A majority of them seem to like my books, which I am very thankful for.
Do you think marketing plays an integral role in the success of books?
Innovation and marketing are the keys to the success of any business. Books are business. The innovation is the content that I write. Marketing is endorsing the product and influencing people to buy your work. They are both important.
With the digitisation of books, have you moved to reading books on screen or do you prefer the old
fashioned books?
I prefer the old-fashioned books. All day I look at my laptop or mobile screen. For reading if I can avoid the screen, why not?