We interviewed another young author, Sandeep Sharma. He is currently pursuing B. Tech in Civil Engineering from JSS Academy of Technical Education, Noida. He consistently writes short stories for a personal blog since 6 years. He is an avid reader and likes to read book on a regular basis.
What inspired you to start writing?
Writing was my father’s dream. I have seen him writing poems on his personal diary but he never showed his creativity to anyone and then one day he just took his diary with him and set it on flames. I was a kid back then and those flames of that ‘burning diary’ are still fresh in my memory. I don’t know the reason or the motive of my father, I never asked him but that day, I made a promise to myself that one day I’ll be living those dreams of my father.
What did you liked to read when you were a boy?
The first book that I read was Harry Potter, I left it halfway because of some personal reasons and then picked Sydney Sheldon’s ‘Are You Afraid Of Dark’; that book left me dumbstruck and since then I started reading every single book written by Sydney Sheldon. My favorite genres were always Suspense and Thriller.
What is the greatest challenge in writing a book?
For me it’s always on deciding the name of the character. I always want to connect with my character while reading it; his name should somehow reflect his personality. So the maximum of my time gets spent on thinking about the name of the characters of my book and hence I think this is the most challenging part for me.
Secondly, I have a very bad habit of getting influenced of what I read. May be that’s why I write different genres at the same time. If I am reading a crime thriller, I never write one, I try to write something else. I know it’s strange but works for me (*winks*).
How much research do you do before writing the book?
For ‘Hey Dad!’ I had to research about a medical phenomenon, for that I did take help of Google, read some blogs, even met with professionals of the related topic.
Currently I am working on a historical thriller that is based on the origin of chess in India and for that, I am doing extensive research to make it look real and digestive. The book is one of the most challenging works and hence is taking lots of time to come up for the readers.
What motivated you to write the book “Hey Dad! Meet My Mom…”?
I wanted to write a ‘love story’ and that’s not a cup of tea for a person who loves to write thriller. I took up the challenge and started to read some of the existing literature in the Indian Market on the same genre. The market is flooded with Love Stories, there was nothing that was left to write, but I had to write something that should be ‘Never Heard Before’ and then suddenly the title strikes to me. Initially I had no story, just a title and that was pretty odd. I started writing it with no idea of where to take the story. In the course of writing the story, I met my co-author Leepi Agrawal, discussed some of the points with her and then finally a story came up that sounded awesome to us and hopefully the reaction of the readers was same as well.
How did you came up with the idea of writing fiction genre book?
I always read fiction, maybe that’s why fiction only. Fiction takes you on ride of imagination and being an author my responsibility is to make that ride worth taking. I never leave any stone unturned to make my reader feel immensely satisfied after finishing the book.
Who are your favourite authors?
Sydney Sheldon and David Baldacci are my all-time favorites.
How much time do you dedicate for writing on a daily basis?
Minimum 1 hour, maximum depends on my involvement with the scene I am writing. Once I get involved in my book, I lose the track on the time.
What words of wisdom would you like to give to aspiring writers?
Read, read, read, there’s no short cut of writing a bestseller (Although if you have money to spend, the tag is on sale too). Have patience and keep reading.
You can buy his book now: