Cosmopolitan India. March issue. @cosmoindia #cosmoindia

 Hi folks,

Here's a bit of nice news from my side:


Got featured in the March issue of Cosmopolitan India! :)
 The story is on 'Top 8 jobs you want'. They had conducted an online poll and being an author was right among the top most coveted jobs.

Cosmo flew me down to Delhi for the shoot. It was a fabulous experience and lots of fun. They did make me feel like a supermodel with the best make-up artists and the best photographers as well as the very talented Cosmo stylists. The features editor was warm and friendly.

For the whole story, do go and pick up the Cosmo  March issue which is now on the stands.

The interview that appears in Cosmo is edited a bit. Here is what i would have liked to add:

Q: Why is being an author your dream job?

Several reasons

1. I am my own boss and I report to no-one. I can take as long as I want or as little time as I want to complete a novel.
2. I have total creative freedom—I can play God.
3. I get invited to speak at premier Institutions like IITs and IIMs.
4. My work is therapy for me. It is a huge stress buster. I forget everything when I write.
5. I have a portable office that travels with me everywhere! All I need is a laptop, to work.

 

Q:. What are the qualities required to be a successful author?

First and foremost is discipline.  You have to be disciplined and persistent enough to keep writing till your novel is completed. The other qualities would be a large dose of imagination, ability to research, empathy so you can get into the heads of your characters and of course a good grasp of the language you are writing in. Also, when you write, you are exposing yourself completely and that needs a lot of courage too .You also need to read a lot!

Q. What are the work hours like?

It varies and entirely depends on the person. You can decide your own working hours. I have written five books since 2008. I tend to work for about  for about 5-6,hours a day and this includes time spent on research, time spent on connecting with your readers on social media and actual writing. But this is only when I am writing a book. Closer to the book launch I tend to work 14-16 hours a day. There are days when I have worked round the clock too, and hardly slept!

Q. What's the best part about your job?

The fact that I can sit  at home, with my dog cuddling up next to me, while I am working! Also, I can take an off whenever I like and I have no fixed hours, plus I report to nobody except myself. I can turn up for work in my night clothes if I feel like it. Also when people tell me that my words have made an impact on their life, it is an all-time high.

Q:. What's the worst part about your job?

I enjoy it so much that I can’t think of a single negative! But I can tell you about a nightmare that happened to me. I was 25000 words into a new novel that I was working on. I had the plot, the outlines and everything else that would go into it, planned. Then a new book by an Irish author came out into the market, and I was horrified to discover that the plot eerily was very similar to the one I was working on! I of course, squished my entire work and abandoned it completely and felt bad for days.

Q. What's your honest advice for young women who want to become award-winning authors?

Awards like the Booker prize, Pulitzer Prize and are mostly given to literary fiction. Ask yourself what kind of writing that you want to do. Do you want to write a romance, a fantasy, a thriller, a historical fiction or any other genre that you may think of?  Then study the kind of work in that genre which has won literary awards. You will thus get a fair idea of the kind of writing that it requires. Make your reading wide and varied. Join a writers group, take classes at a University and keep writing.

There are several authors whose books have sold millions of copies and are always on the best-seller lists, but haven’t won any awards.

For me personally, my biggest validation comes from my readers, who write in and tell me that they could relate to my book, and they saw themselves in my writing.

Hope you found the above useful!

Good luck to all of you out there, aspiring to be authors.

Just write!

Love

Preeti

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ps: My latest book has been getting  some fabulous reviews. Buy it from Amazon just Rs.99/- for a limited period!