Writing helps me create a different world that I can escape to.
I want my writing to reach people. I don't write for a market. I write from my heart, something that appeals to me. The marketing, segmenting etc., can be done by your publisher, not you.
I was a businessman for 16 years of my life, so when I started writing, I wanted to keep my literary identity separate.
Writing is a intensely personal activity. I can pen down my best thoughts when Im alone. But when one is elevated into the stature of an author, you have to think about your books in terms of their business angle.
I work in a business environment forty hours a week, and writing is what I do to unwind. It allows me to transport myself to a happy place where I can indulge my hopes, beliefs, aspirations and fantasies. It also allows me to live and breathe a topic for eighteen months while I'm researching and writing.
Our country has the oldest tradition of storytelling, and this was much before writing stories even became a norm.
I am a businessman at the end of the day. I have grown up with Excel sheets. I start out writing my novel with spreadsheets and the milestones in each chapter highlighted.
I want to make sure that my writing grips the reader from the word 'go.'
Writing is incidental to my primary objective, which is spinning a good yarn. I view myself as a storyteller more than a writer. The story - and hence the extensive research that goes into each one of my books - is much more important than the words that I use to narrate it.
Writing was my route to creative expression, and I needed to write about the things that interested me.
After writing each novel, I would spend days poring over suggestions from my editor.
I don't care if my books don't sell abroad; we have a large enough market in our country. I write for Indian readers.
What I would not like is to be ignored. I write from the heart. I don't write for me. I write for my readers.
It may sound very strange, but I love the freedom that writing a novel gives me. It is an unhindered experience. If I come after a bad day, I can decide that my protagonist will die on page 100 of my novel in a 350-page story.
