Author Interview!!

Author Interview with Mr. Lalu Krishnan!

Author Bio

An IIEST and XIMB alumnus and e-learning industry leader, Lalu manages myriad situations for a living, and writes to live life. He experiments with drama, romance, satire, psychology and mystery in his short story blog – Bohemian Ruminations. He won the Sparsh Short Story Contest, 2018 for “The Questions of Choice”. His story, “The Lounge”, was part of the Top Stories section of one of India’s leading online publishers and received rave reviews. He has been conferred the title of Literary Colonel by a leading online literary platform.

1. When did you first realize that you want to be a writer ? 

Ans- Since childhood, I had a fondness for the written word. However, through many years of undivided focus on making a living, the thought of writing a book had never occurred to me, until much later in life.

My short literary career had its genesis in my day job and has been influenced and motivated by my colleagues - a bunch of creative folks, many of them, writers by profession. .

Five years ago, I received feedback that I was losing my personal connect with my team. As one of the interventions to address this feedback, I sent a series of fortnightly emails to the team. Apart from the minimal, mundane business updates, my emails would recount random tidbits from my life. The anecdotes included the amusing, but happy anticlimax of my daughter’s school admission to my clumsy goof-ups during the intra-office futsal tournament. These emails triggered very positive feedback about my style of storytelling.  Such feedback, coming from this bunch meant a lot.

That’s when I took to writing seriously, at the “young” age of 40 - a time when most successful authors would be planning their tenth bestseller!

Other than working on The Robot maker, in the last four years, I have written around twenty short stories. I have put up some of them in my blog - Bohemian Ruminations. My short stories have received very generous feedback from its readers. One of my stories - The Questions of Choice - has won the Sparsh Short Story Competition, 2018. Another story, the Lounge, was part of the Top Stories section of one of India’s leading online publishers and received rave reviews. I have also been conferred the title of Literary Colonel by a leading online literary platform. These accolades motivated me even more and drove me to believe that I should keep writing.

 

2. How long does it take you to write a book?

Ans- For me, it depends a lot on the situation on my day job. For The Robot maker, I took about 6 months to complete the first draft. Thereafter I took another 8 months to edit, revise the drafts and bring to its current state. The 8 months that I took for the revisions also included me spending disproportionate amount of time on my day job due to a difficult project that I was in the middle of at that point of time.

For the couple of titles I am working on at the moment, it is taking me a little longer, because of the competing priorities and pressures of my day job.

 

3. What comes first, the plot or characters?

Ans- The plot and the main characters around which the plot revolves come almost simultaneously. The plot evolves as I write. Sub-plots emerge, which support the main plot and make it more credible. In the process, more characters get created.

 

4. Does your family support you ?

Ans- Without doubt. I stay with my wife and daughter. They are a constant motivation. I, often, run plot ideas past my wife, who finds loopholes and gives suggestions to make it better. A lot of the twists and turns in The Robot maker can be attributed to her. My eleven year old daughter is a bibliophile. These days, she reads my drafts and provides me with feedback and ideas. My mother reads most of my work - she was one of the first readers of the first draft of The Robot maker. My sister also motivates me in whatever ways she can. I also want to acknowledge the contribution of my colleagues - in this case, somewhat my extended family, since I spend so much time with them. I have been fortunate to rub shoulders with these amazingly creative folks - many of them, writers. A lot of my writing has been influenced and motivated by my them.

 

5. How do you develop your plot and characters?

Ans- For me, the main inspirations to take the story along come from reading, experiences and observation of people and incidents around me. So, there will be those shades in this story as well. But  then, these observations and experiences were juxtaposed with imagining the “what-ifs”. Then these were twisted and molded to fit into the plot and make it interesting.

 

6. Do you try more to be original or to deliver to readers what they want?

Ans- I don’t believe that this needs to be binary. I strive to be original, while still trying to deliver to the readers what they want. As much as I write as a let out or a therapy, I strongly feel that any piece of writing will serve its purpose only if it connects with its readers.

 

7. How do you come up with the titles to your books?

Ans- The original title for this work was - “The Intent Intruder”. However, my bibliophile daughter, during a discussion about the book, opined that this title was too dark. On giving this some thought, I felt that she was right. In the quest for the new title, I tried to narrow down to one that is intriguing, aligns of the plot, but does not give it away. “The Robot maker” refers to the protagonist who runs a company that develops robotics solutions. The title is intriguing, apt and does not give away much.

Even for my short stories, I try to come up with a title that ticks these boxes - intrigue, aptness and that it should not give away too much.

 

8. Which was the hardest part of your book to write?

Ans- Some portions that needed a number of re-writes were the jail sequences, the court sequences and compelling reasons for Sid to have an awakening. Those were the relatively difficult parts.

In general, I struggled a bit with writing and re-writing the drafts. The final draft was very different from the first one in terms of the sequence and presentation of the scenes. I spent a lot of time trying to attain the most optimum flow at a pace that would sustain the reader’s interest. It took a lot of time and effort to read, re-read and mold the drafts through permutations and combinations of the scenes and the transitions.

The Writer’s Block is another challenge that I try to beat through the combination of reading, observation and experiences.

But, the biggest challenge was to find the time to write and to make it into a habit, while balancing the priorities of a high pressure day job.

 

9. Describe your writing space.

Ans- I stay in a small apartment and therefore cannot boast of my own writing space. I borrow my daughter’s study table for writing. The space is well lit. There is a spacious L-shaped corner table with a book shelf above it, riveted to the wall It is full of books - mainly my daughter’s collection. This works fine because I usually write late at night and early in the morning - a time when my daughter does not use her study.

 

10. How do you handle writer’s block?

Ans- I try to beat the Writer’s Block through the combination of reading, observation and experiences. I also discuss my deadlock with my wife, daughter and colleagues and keep my eyes, ears and mind opened for ideas to break the deadlock. I, sometimes, leave the piece midway and move on to write something else - usually a short story - for a few days, before coming back to it with a fresh and an open mind.

 

11. How many hours a day do you write?

Ans- It is important to get into the rigour of writing, make it a habit and enjoy the process. I would make it a point to write one or two pages everyday after work - around an hour; perhaps, a little more. It was also like a let out and a kind of a therapy after a stressful day at work. At times, I would also use early mornings. But the bulk of the writing would happen on weekends - around two hours each on Saturday and Sunday.

 

12. Do you have any suggestions to help a budding writer for becoming a better writer? If so, what are they?

Ans- Take the plunge; Keep writing and improving; Enjoy the process; Getting published will be tough - so, don’t get disheartened by those rejections.