My Apenbok interview

Excerpt of BS Murthy's Apenbok interview

https://apenbok.com/authorinterviewpr...

When do you think someone should call themselves a writer?

It's the feeling of having written something original that ensues in one the true sense of being a writer.

How do you process and deal with negative book reviews?

I've internalized Gita's take -
"Pats ’n slights all in the score
Treats as equal score My man
Takes he in his stride his lot
But won’t put the blame on Me" -

Ch 12, v19 of Bhagvad-Gita, transcreated as Treatise of Self-help by me - https://g.co/kgs/E1MZhS

What is the most challenging part of your writing process?

My novel writing has been the sailing of my muse in its flowing stream. But shaping my stage plays was challenging in that I had to contrive the run of the play so as to make the audience await the next scene, scene after scene till the very end.

How long have you been writing, or when did you start?

I could see in the hindsight that the seeds of my middle-aged novel writing, indeed my creative writing, were planted in my adolescent letter writing.

What advice would you give writers working on their first book?

They may mind the saying that one cannot be a good writer without being a good reader and it's also right for them to wait till writing beckons them to write.

How do you develop your plot and characters?

Maybe the story idea conceives the characters and together they lead the muse on an appropriate plot

How many books have you written, and which is your favorite?

Besides scores of eclectic articles, my body of work comprises of the fictional Benign Flame: Saga of Love, Jewel-less Crown: Saga of Life, Crossing the Mirage: Passing through youth (plot and character driven novels), Glaring Shadow: A stream of consciousness novel, Prey on the Prowl: A Crime Novel, Of No Avail: Web of Wedlock, a novella, Stories Varied: A Book of Short Stories and Onto the Stage: Slighted Souls and other stage and radio plays and the non-fictional Puppets of Faith: Theory of Communal Strife (A Critical Appraisal of Islamic Faith, Indian Polity ‘n More) and Inane Interpolations in Bhagvad-Gita (An Invocation for their Revocation) my non-fiction includes the versification of Bhagvad-Gita: Treatise of self-help and Sundara Kãnda: Hanuman’s Odyssey (the last two in verses). In the Indian literary tradition, books are deemed as author's daughters, and so are equally close to the writer's heart. However, I tend to be partial towards Benign Flame: Saga of Love, for its being the first born.

What part of the book did you have the hardest time writing?

Maybe my passion to write enabled a smooth sailing all through my writing.

What inspired the idea for your book?

While the muse inspired me to begin writing books in my mid-forties, it was my eventful life which I examined that supplied the chain of ideas to those,

What was your hardest scene to write, and why?

In my second novel, Jewel-less Crown: Saga of Life, Gautam was destined to sacrifice his wife Sneha's chastity to salvage his business but my predicament lay in musing about a credible plot to make him induce her into the act. That was even as the time for it was fast nearing in the narrative, which incidentally was shortly after the American invasion of Afghanistan in Oct 2001. However, one evening around then, when I was hugely upset after learning about the betrayal of an unscrupulous character that portended to undermine my career, I recalled at length that owing to the double-cross by Pakistan's ISI, Abdul Haq, the then Pashtun leader, who was trying to create a popular uprising in Afghanistan against the Taliban, had lost his life at the latter’s hands. So, even as my career jeopardy seemed trivial in comparison to Haq’s pathetic end by perfidy, my muse conceived to plot Sneha’s fall on the path of Manian’s betrayal of her man.

What do you need in your writing space to help you stay focused?

Regardless of the surroundings, it's my love for language that enables me to stay focused on my writing.

If you could spend a day with another popular author, whom would you choose?

Sadly for me spending a day with my favorite authors is in the realms of impossibility as they all left, leaving their works for our literary company, and they are for Leo Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Nikolai Gogol, Ivan Turgenev, Emily Zola, Gustav Flaubert, Theodor Fontane, Marcel Proust, Robert Musil et al.

When was the last time you Googled yourself and what did you find?

I regularly Google myself to ascertain the progress of my body of work in the ebook world https://g.co/kgs/WHc1bd