Vijay Krishna AKA Vijay Sharma is a writer, born in the small town of Batala of Gurdaspur district in the state of Punjab, India. He grew up in a middle-class family in Delhi and completed his education in Delhi. He loves to travel to different cities across the world to experience different cultures and to meet interesting people to get inspiration to write good stories. He writes short stories, fictional novels, and travelogues.
So here is our conversation with him. 🙂
Q. 1 As this is your first novel do you want each book to stand on its own, or are you going to build a body of work with connections in your future books?
Vijay: Rocky and Arjun is my first novel published this year, this is a story of a strong relationship like brothers between a dog (Rocky) and a boy (Arjun) and their memorable moments together. As I writer I would like to explore different human relationships and different emotions therefore I want each book to stand on its own. The only common connections between each book will be stories with strong emotions and simple to complex relationships.
Q. 2 If you could tell your younger writing self anything, what would it be?
Vijay: I will ask my younger self to come back to me and take me to his world of imagination, my younger self was always immersed in his imaginative world to weave new characters and their stories. As a child my power of imagination was extraordinary, and I was daydreaming a lot about some unusual characters and their lives.
Q. 3 How did publishing your first book change your process of writing?
Vijay: My first book Rocky and Arjun took seven years to get published after I wrote this as a short story and then keep on developing it into a book. During two Covid lockdowns, I wrote the initial drafts with these two characters and their journey together from the day they meet each other to the last day of the dog’s life in just three chapters format and then re-wrote the entire book in a different format which is eventual days of the dog’s life where both Rocky and Arjun try to remember or relive their memorable moments along with other characters in this book. This version is ultimately the final published version of my book.
I don’t think my process of writing stories will change, one thing which will change now is my next book will be published in 6-7 months as I know the process of completing a book within timelines and know how much time it takes to get it published.
Q. 4 What was the best money you ever spent as a writer?
Vijay: Best money I have spent is as a writer, is in buying good books to read, to improve my creative writing skills. I love to read fictional stories, therefore I read the work of different Indian and International authors.
Q. 5 When did you start writing?
Vijay: If I remember correctly, I started writing at a very young age, I think at 7 or 8 years. At that age, I won a few awards for writing good essays or reports on cultural events happening in our school. After my father introduced me to children story books like Champak, Chanda Mama, Chaacha Choudhary and Saboo, Billoo and Pinky, Vikram aur Betaal, Panchatantra ki kahaniyaan and Stories by Guru Rabindranath Tagore, Anton Chekhov and Ruskin Bond. My thinking process and my writing style changed completely, I started writing fictional characters and their stories. Once I sent a story to Delhi Press Group, a publishing house to publish my story in “Champak”. My story didn’t publish but I received a thanks letter from Delhi Press Group with a note – Keep writing good stories, young man. I think I was 10 years old at that time. I told my father about it, but he scolded me and asked me to focus on my studies as I was a brilliant child and used to be top of my class throughout my school days.
Q. 6. Have you always wanted to be a writer?
Vijay: Yes, as a child till the age of 10, I wanted to be a writer. I was always lost in my own world of fictional stories. Later, my focus changed to studying science to become a surgeon.
The writer in me took a back seat but he never vanished from my sight, he kept on coming back to remind me to have a look at him.
I used to tell stories to my daughters every night when they were children, and they loved those stories which I used to create every night for them with new characters, but I never wrote those stories.
One day I realized that I should write these stories as they are my creations. That is how I started writing fictional short stories and poems, which lead to writing a book – Rocky, and Arjun.
Q. 7 What advice would you give a new writer, someone just starting out?
Vijay: Normally I do not give any advice, especially in the creative field like writing as every person has their distinct style and approach to writing. I can share my experience of writing a book.
• Listen to your heart and start writing your stories.
• Then read your stories to yourself to make them interesting, before sharing them with others.
• Then read them to your family members and friends. If everyone likes your stories, then write short versions of the story before writing a complete book or a novel.
• Then decide which one of your stories, is the most interesting short story which can be further developed with some more interesting characters in the same story to finally write it into a book or a novel.
• Please edit your book as much or as many times as possible before submitting it to the publisher. No one likes a half-cooked meal.
