You know, when my first book released ten years - WAIT, TEN YEARS??? - ago, I had foolishly imagined a very glamorous author life. Book readings and book signings, panel discussions and lit fest invitations - all of these featured in the list of things I expected my life to include at that point.
That didn't happen. Like, AT ALL.
And slowly, but surely, my expectations from #authorlife deflated and came down to a depressingly realistic level. I began to enjoy the part of it that was really worthwhile. The writing. The crafting. The laughing-my-head-off-at-my-own-jokes as I edited. And just when I had settled down comfortably in the belief that this is it, this is as good as it gets, this happened.
Yes, that's me in the corner, behind Maria Goretti - MARIA GORETTI, MAN - next to Gajra Kottary (the writer of Baalika Vadhu) and in front of Vinta Nanda - THE WRITER OF TARA, YOU GAAIZ! Not seen in the picture? Sathya Saran, editor of Femina for 12 years! And I was there, fangirling around all of them like some kind of... fangirl.
See, the editor of my next book - the next in the Avantika Pandit series - called and asked me to attend a book event to celebrate women's voices and I went and sat for a panel discussion and said things and made people laugh. So many tickboxes in one evening, I tell ya.
But while that was fun, what I really want to do now is to get back to the writing bit. Maybe start the edits of the Avantika Pandit book. Or begin work on the second draft of my work-in-progess. Not because dressing up and being all author-y isn't fun, of course it is. But just sitting in one place and writing? Nothing beats that.
That, I believe, is what we in the trade call character development.
And while someone has said that the hardest part of writing is sitting down to write, I'm just happy I get to do that. Write.*
*But also sit, which after my slipped disc episodes, I don't take for granted.