What inspired you to start writing?
In my teens, my personal feelings made their way into private letters, in mid-thirties, my workplace reflections found expression in my managerial articles and in late-forties my examined life began to lend itself to my fictional works to further foray into other genres.
What has been the most rewarding part of being an indie author?
Honestly, I haven’t become an indie author by choice, but under the compulsion of rejections, of my maiden novel, Benign Flame: Saga of Love, by every publisher to name. Besides, in that exclusive print period, unlike in these digital times, self-publishing was peremptorily dismissed as vanity publishing.
Whatever, after putting my first six in print to no avail, and when the digital platforms opened up, I opted to place my entire body of work on those as free ebooks. True, in spite of twelve books, in varied genres, under my literary belt, besides scores of articles, I largely remain an unheralded author in the world of letters. However, seeing that my oeuvre manages to swim through the literary ocean to reach some ebook readers that too to some acclaim of some of them, and that is my reward for being an indie author.
I’ve summed it all in my auto-biographical piece, “My ‘Novel’ Account of Human Possibility” thus: The possibilities of life are indeed novel, and seemingly my life has crystallized itself in my body of work before death could dissipate it.
What advice would you give to new or aspiring indie authors?
The twin components of writing, to better describe in Sanskrit, are bhasha (language) and bhava (becoming), the former, a product of reading, and the latter, a by-product of examined life. So, in so far as the fiction goes, its bhasha, unless accompanied by bhava, remains mere words that fail to impact the readers.
At the risk of repetition, I urge the aspiring authors to pause and let bhava make it happen them to write, however without any letup in their reading, going by the saying, one cannot become a good writer unless he has been a good reader.
How do you handle book promotion as an indie author?
I spare no digital platform that hosts free ebooks, but sadly, my means constrain me from publishing them on pay sites (justifiably so) such as this Unprompted Books.
What’s next for you? Are you working on a new book?
Well, there is nothing on the anvil now. But as individual creativity too has its own limits, maybe, I’ve reached mine as well; or simply it could be a combination of biological aging, (I’m running 79) and literary fatigue (of penning 12 books). However, I do come up with an occasional essay or an article, whenever my urge for expression, stirred by my restless thinking, compels me to reach the keyboard.