Author Interview: Manasi Vaidya

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1. What prompted you to be an author or you always wanted to be one?

I’ve been writing for as long as I can remember, it was a good way to put my overactive imagination to some constructive use, but I never really thought about being an author, my writing was mostly for myself. Even when I first got the idea for my book, I never really thought about getting it published, it was just this dream I had, to be able to write a book someday. So it feels great to be a published author and actually have readers tell me that they enjoyed the book.

2.How did you choose the genre and also the name?

When I first started thinking about the book I had a very clear idea about the kind of book it was going to be; warm, funny, a little bit of romance, and I wanted to set it against the corporate backdrop that I’ve worked in myself and was familiar with. So it naturally fell into a romantic comedy sort of genre.

Choosing the name was tough, I struggled with it for weeks and I remember telling my editor that choosing a name was tougher than writing the book! My editors suggested the name finally, they rejected all the options that I’d come up with. But I loved the name ‘No Deadline For Love’ when I heard it and it was finalized right away.

3. Any future projects that you are working on right now?

Yes I’m working on my second book at the moment. And I’m day dreaming about lots of other ideas for books and stories that I have. And I also try and update my blog, ‘Hello Mommyhood’, as often as I can.

4. What should an author keep in mind while writing down a novel?

I think it’s really important to believe very strongly in your idea or story and be very passionate and charged about it. Its only when you feel very strongly about an idea or story that you can really do it justice.

While writing a book, I think it’s best to find a method that works for you; it could be a very linear style of working or one that’s completely unstructured. It’s important to find the style that suits you and then be consistent and keep at it.

5. Any advice for budding authors?

Just start writing! If you feel you have a book in you, don’t wait for the right moment or place or for divine inspiration to strike, just start writing. Practise your writing skills if you like, in other ways like writing a blog or a diary for example. And read a lot, reading is almost as important, if not more, as writing, when you want to be a writer.

6. Your favorite book that you have read?

Picadilly Jim by PG Wodehouse. It’s my go-to book for whenever I need a pick me up.

7. Your inspiration behind writing?

I don’t have any specific inspiration as such. It’s usually experiences that I go through, little moments or specific instances that trigger a line of thought or spark off a new idea for a story.

8. How are critics Important?

Critics can help you evolve as a writer provided you know how to tell from among the different types of criticism. When you write something and put it out there, it becomes public property, so anybody can have a take on it. It’s important to be able to sift through the various reactions coming in and take what’s really useful. It’s important to not let the destructive, or worse, vindictive kind of criticism get to you. At the same time it’s important to learn from the constructive criticism so that you can grow as a writer.

9. Tell us something about your book?

The book is a romantic comedy set against a corporate backdrop. It’s about a girl struggling to fit into a world where she is increasingly beginning to feel like an outsider, and how she finally finds her life’s true calling.

Megha, the protagonist of my book, has trodden the conventional path all her life, like quite a lot of us out there, she’s done her graduation in Economics, got an MBA from the best b-school in the country, landed herself a conventionally ‘good job’ and everything should be perfect except that she has this constant feeling that this is not really what she wants to do with her life. ‘No Deadline For Love’ tells the story of her struggles to stay afloat in the corporate jungle, mired with evil bosses and bitchy colleagues, a mother who’s desperate to float her on the ‘marriage market’ and Yudi…the guy who is all wrong for her but whom she can’t help thinking about!

10. How is it different?

Hmmm…well, although the book is a quintessential light read, it does have a message, that of having the conviction to believe in your dreams and follow your heart. I think this will resonate with a lot of people who are stuck in jobs they secretly hate. On a serious note though, I have met many people like Megha, in ‘No Deadline…’, people who do an MBA because it is the ‘right’ thing to do or because it will land them a ‘good’ job, and at some point they end up feeling frustrated because they never took the time to find what it is that they really wanted to do.

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