Firstly, I would like to begin with the most basic question, how did your journey with the pen begin?
Sudhanshu: When I picked it up. It all started when I wrote the autobiography of a horse back in school - and I was given a 10 on 10. But after that, I didn't seriously think of writing for at least 15 years.
Amit: I had been writing ever since I was kid. I once wrote a short story that my teacher read out to the entire class. Tried my hand at poetry, and realized I’m not very good with it. Later on, I wrote a couple of songs for the band Jalebee Cartel and started reviewing video games on indianvideogamer.com. But the thought of writing a book never crossed my mind until I started talking about it seriously with Sudhanshu.
Sudhanshu: Like everybody, I jumped on the blogging bandwagon in the early years of the new millennium. Over the next few years, I launched a series of blogs, sometimes even with a vengeance, but I was never really able to maintain a single one. Like most things on the Internet, the life of a blog can also be very ephemeral (unless you are a celebrity). So I abandoned blogging as an 'outlet' for creativity and pondered over writing a book instead. Having said that, I would still like to put a few books behind me before calling myself a writer.
Amit: The moment I had the print out of the finished manuscript in my hand. The first thought that crossed my mind was “Wow! We really did it”, followed immediately by “So I guess I can start calling myself a writer now.”
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| Sudhanshu Gupta |
What inspired you to write your first book?
Amit: The desire to do something more spectacular with our lives than the usual grind of getting a job, settling down and going with the flow of things. It’s a different high altogether to create something out of your imagination, and that is our primary inspiration. Hopefully it will drive us to write many more books
What books have highly influenced your life?
Sudhanshu: Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams, American Gods and Fragile Things by Neil Gaiman, Watchmen by Alan Moore. And many more.
Amit: As a kid, I really liked books by Enid Blyton, especially the stories of The Enchanted Woods and The Faraway Tree. I think there is some bit of that in my writing somewhere. Later on, the works of Stephen King and Arthur C. Clarke. And more recently, Neil Gaiman and Haruki Murakami.
If you had to choose, which writer would you consider a mentor?
Sudhanshu: A three way cross between Douglas Adams, Neil Gaiman and Haruki Murakami
Are there any new authors that have grasped your interest?
Sudhanshu: Ernest cline. His vision of an alternate future is brilliant in 'Ready Player One' and Arnab Ray - for going beyond the boundaries which most Indian fiction writers play in.
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| Amit Goyal |
Amit: I really liked what Siddin Vadukut did with the Dork series. It was a refreshing and hilarious read as opposed to the plethora of urban romances that are available these days.
If you had to do it all over again, would you change anything in your latest book?
Amit: I’d say we could have given it a little more time for editing. In order to meet our release window we had to rush the process up a bit, and quite a few errors made their way into the first print. Apart from that, we take special note of all the negative feedback we get. Not that we would change anything about this book, but it is often good advice for our future works.
Can you share a little of your current work with us?
Amit: The Lost Story uses a unique writing mechanic that Sudhanshu and I worked out in order to write the book. The idea was simple – what if one person starts a story, but another else ends it. A shift of perspective can lead to some interesting and unexpected conclusions, and we like to believe that we achieved that to a great extent.
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| Cover Page |
The Lost story is the story of Saleem and Sandy – the former a celebrated writer who stopped writing for unknown reasons 23 years ago, and the latter a student, an aspiring writer and a big fan of Saleem. Sandy’s can’t believe his luck when he gets a chance to work with Saleem on one last book - a book of short stories where either one of the two starts a story and the other one ends it without any discussion between the two, which has also been mirrored in the writing of the book by Sudhanshu and me.
As they move forward with their book, Sandy starts discovering strange things about Saleem. I guess you’ll have to read the book to find out more.
Do you have to travel much concerning your books?
Sudhanshu: Not really. Though that would be awesome :)
What was the hardest part of writing your book?
Sudhanshu: Starting was the hardest part. Once the ball got rolling, it was practically writing itself.
Do you have any advice for other writers?
Sudhanshu: Write what you would like to read.
Amit: Tell your own stories. Not stories that you think others would like to hear.
Finally, Do you have anything specific that you want to say to our readers (The TeenMag)?
Sudhanshu: Do pick up 'The Lost Story'. And we hope you enjoy reading it :)
Connect with the lost story : Click Here
Grab Your Copy : Click Here
-Akhil Ramesh
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