MEET THE AUTHOR
Author and poet Preeti Shenoy stresses that her books are more than just love stories. They explore a social issue, she tells Anand Raj OK
From painting to penning poetry, Preeti Shenoy uses many mediums to express her thoughts, but it is writing fiction that she truly enjoys.
Writer, blogger, photographer, poet, artist: Bengaluru-based best-selling author Preeti Shenoy is all of these and more. With eight books to her credit, the popular writer, however, says that what she enjoys most is writing fiction. Is it then a struggle juggling her various talents? ‘See, when you say juggle it implies you are trying desperately to sustain this at the cost of giving up,’ says Preeti, in a telephone interview. ‘For me it’s not like that. I’m equally passionate about everything – my art, photography, blogging, writing. It’s effortless for me because I enjoy what I do. When I feel like painting I paint, when I feel like writing poetry, I do that, when I want to blog, I blog… However, when I am writing a novel, I’m a lot more disciplined.’
Preeti, who will be at the Sharjah International Book Fair, started out as a blogger more than a decade ago to cope with the grief following the death of her father. So popular did the blog become that she was soon writing opinion columns in newspapers. Her first book, 34 Bubblegums and Candies, a collection of real-life incidents, arrived in 2008.
Was it easy getting her book published?
‘It was a bit of a struggle and I did get some rejection slips,’ says Preeti, who has figured several times on the Forbes List of the 100 most influential celebrities in India. ‘But my first novel met with moderate success.’
Getting her second book published was far more difficult. ‘ Life is What You Make of It was rejected many times,’ she says. ‘Many’ is around 35 times. Life is What… is about a character who has bipolar disorder and getting it published was a sharp learning curve for her. ‘It doesn’t mean that because you’ve got a first book published, publishers are going to be falling over themselves to publish your second book. At the end of the day it’s a business proposition to them,’ she says, recalling how she kept pitching her book.
What kept her going, however, was ‘that I’d invested two years of my life in writing the book. I didn’t have a choice. I’d done a lot of research. I knew I wanted to tell that story so I kept trying,’ she says.
The determination paid off. ‘The book has sold more than half a million copies. That and several other books of mine have been translated into several languages,’ says the author whose favourite reads are the works of Roald Dahl for grown ups.
The idea for her second book came about during the time she was in the UK. ‘There’s a lot of awareness about bipolar there. In fact I came across a bipolar artists group and being an artist myself, was curious to see the mind of a person who can paint that way. So I began to research and learn more about it.’
Published on January 1, 2011, Life is What… a book of love and hope, quickly zoomed to the top of the charts becoming a national bestseller and featuring on Nielsen’s list of Top Books of 2011.
Loves, loss, relationships.. are these a common thread in all her books?
‘I think it’s a misconception that [my] books are about love and relationships. My books explore a social issue. For instance, The Secret Wishlist touches upon marital rape, a subject that is not spoken about much in society. It explores the concept whether you can manifest your wishes simply by making a wishlist and doing nothing about it. It explores the concept of fate vs destiny and whether you can avert it.
‘So, yes, while there might be relationships, you cannot call them love stories because when you say ‘love stories’ the typical ones that come to mind are Mills and Boon. None of my books is like that.’
Preeti, who is ‘inspired by life’ says that at any time, half a dozen ideas could be running through her mind. ‘Some of them I translate into novels, some poetry, some paintings… The tenacity of people to fight even in the most hopeless of situations, like, for instance, a person who has cancer and is fighting to live – that amazes me.’
She believes the reason her books are popular with readers is due to the emotional connect they offer. ‘A lot of readers say my books touch a chord in them,’ she says.
Does she write for a particular segment of the population? ‘I honestly write for myself. I don’t keep a particular audience in mind when I’m writing,’ she says.
Extremely disciplined when it comes to writing, the 45-year-old author says that when she starts a book, she works relentlessly until she completes it.
‘I drink a lot of coffee and tea when I am writing. Fortunately I don’t use a lot of sugar,’ says the writer who prefers using her bed as her writing space.
So, what are her top tips for budding authors?
Read a lot, she says.
Point No 2 is, read, read, read. I’d say read at least 50 books before you set off to write one.
Also very important: Write every single day. Pen at least 500 words a day. I write a minimum of 1,000 words a day even when I am not writing a novel. I may not publish it all even on my blog, but I write every single day.’