Interviews

A Writing Start
Vijay Medtia

The weather takes you slowly when Autumn starts. You shut the windows against the rain and the cold. The wind does its work and the leaves change colour in some kind of defiant show to prevent them from being stripped off the branches- all to no avail. They gather along the pavements or against a fence- dry, brown and breaking under feet. People move with quick step, the chill forcing them to turn up their coat collars. Sunshine disappears and weeks, yes weeks start to pass without any bright light - one grey day after another.

Starbucks, just off the corner of Albert Square is crowded with people taking a break from their office work; smart men and women staring through the windows, reading a book or a newspaper. The smell of coffee was strong but I didn’t spend too much time there, only going for a change of scene. There were many strangely named coffees and at the beginning I was confused; espresso, cappuccino, caramel macchiato- all expensively priced. The cups would be big, too big for a cup of coffee- and I paid the high price because I didn’t want to look stupid in front of the pretty smiling girl; when all I wanted was a simple cup of regular coffee with one sugar.

The coffee shop was not far from the Friends Meeting house building owned by the Quakers association. This was a Christian organization about whom I knew little then and perhaps still know little now. Across the road there was the central library of Manchester, a huge round building, one of the land marks of the city. The library formed my place of work- where I was going to write my stories, my first novel. It gave me time and peace; a place to write sheltering from the cold wind and rain- and all for free. This is something that shouldn’t be underestimated for a writer starting out- a place where he can write without having to worry about the cost. I will always be very grateful to the British library.

Finishing the coffee I would head back into the library with my coat, shoulder bag carrying my notepad, pens and pencils. Finding a quite desk, the process of writing would begin with a pencil or a pen. If it was a pencil, they would be sharpened first, and for a good while this became a sort of ritual before the first sentence was written; it helped me focus. I wrote in long hand, still do, and not straight onto the laptop like a lot of writers. It’s a process that feels natural and lends itself to making me more creative.

People who have never written cannot understand what a writer does and how difficult this god damned art is- they hear of the big authors and the great amount of money they make and say this writing lark can’t be all that hard. Sit down and write a quick book and hey bingo, the money rolls in. If only it was that simple, but for most writers until the day they make it, they are going to embrace poverty and not riches. A famous writer once said that- In any other profession, to work without getting paid would be considered ridiculous!

At first I began to write a novel, jumping in at the deep end when it might have been better to have started with a short story or two. There was no idea about what I was doing, only a creative urge to write. No one in my family read, it wasn’t an activity that we thought about or did. There were no books or novels in the house. No one that I knew in my immediate family, aunts, uncles or cousins read novels- one or two might have read religious books but that was about it. Sometimes the fact that I have entered this whole literary field amazes me. No satisfactory answer has yet come to mind - but the one that is doing the rounds in my head at the moment - is that I wanted to tell a story my way. That is - in my vision.

As the writing started to flow onto the page, I found that I wrote pretty quickly and the ideas would come instinctively. My first novel as the days went by was some kind of thriller- the main character had to save a VIP and there was a love angle and some Chinese spies thrown in for good measure. I probably threw in quite a lot for good measure. No reading what so ever had preceded this writing effort but I found that I liked the creation of characters, story, enjoyed the process and that was all there was to it.

To my scant knowledge there were no writing or reading groups or any writing courses- all these things became popular later... almost in the last six years. So I started out alone and soon realised that writing is a lonely occupation, but even this observation didn’t hit home until much later. The writing was engrossing me. In this way the work progressed for about three or four months and the first novel was finished- its length was around 180 pages and that was all. Polishing the opening chapters, all one had to do now was to find a publisher and send it off. There was no one advising me about how to go about this and I didn’t know anyone to ask. I had Zero writer friends and zero Publishing knowledge. The strong expectation was that the first publisher would accept my ‘masterpiece’ and send me a fine cheque. Fame and fortune would be there of course, that is to be expected- how many castles did I build in my head. If I revealed all of them it would only open me to more ridicule now.

The only novel that I had ever read at school was... Wuthering Heights. This novel had left a big impression but after that I never read another novel. It wasn’t something that I did. Sports took over most of my spare time, friends, Indian films and work. The influence of bad films pushed me towards writing. I always thought that I could write a better story and used to find fault with the many poor directors.

After waiting for a few weeks, my novel was returned through the post with a standard rejection letter. ‘Thank you for sending us your manuscript, but unfortunately it is not to our liking’ or something like that. It was a small brief letter, signed by some editor that I had never heard of. The rejection didn’t affect me because there was no understanding of rejection. The novel was sent out again and after it was roundly rejected by five publishers - the first inkling hit me that I needed to improve the novel. The very first draft had been sent out with poor grammar, spelling, and no editing. But it had been a good learning process and I was starting to get hooked by this writing hobby, more than hooked, it was taking over my life.

Then my reading began and even this was done in such a way that it was a surprise that I wasn’t laughed right out of the store. Entering Waterstones and past all the thousands of books, I asked the assistant whether they had any books by Charles Dickens? Imagine asking this in England.

Which one? asked the assistant.

Any will do.

He had a slight smile on his face and pointed out Great Expectations. I bought that and few other classics. Why Charles Dickens? Because I had heard of him at school. This was the beginning of my reading - all the other books in that store meant nothing to me, they didn’t exist in my imagination. But I started to learn and enjoyed reading the Great Expectations. Then I slowly discovered other writers - American, French, Russian and Indian; the more I read and practiced writing, the better I became.

The challenge now was to become a good published writer- with the emphasis on Good. Hard work followed and after another six years of effort- my first novel The House of Subadar was accepted by Arcadia Books and published a year later in 2006. In 2007 it was shortlisted for the Glen Dimplex New Writers Award, Dublin.

There is now more understanding of the publishing world, its demands, the way it operates, although I’m still learning. I have also had the good fortune to meet up with writer friends, who are struggling on their own journeys. Together we have managed to reduce the loneliness and gain critical feedback. I am working on the completion of my second novel and hope that too will be accepted for publication when it’s finished. If not, then I’ll just start on the next novel. A writer has to keep writing; have faith, talent, determination and luck.