Devoted to publishing, publishers and to those who craft the written word

"There is a certain pleasure we take in thinking about how bad it gets, Sartaj thought, and then in imagining how it will inevitably get worse. And still we survive, the city stumbles on."

That's a hardboiled line from Vikram Chandra's new Bombay-noir novel, Sacred Games. The police officer hero is reflecting on cosmopolitan Indian, but those lines could just as easily describe a struggling writer, city-dweller, or anybody else living in our troubled new century.

Today, Chandra discusses how to cope with the struggles of a fledgling writer in my deceptively simple feature: Five Easy Questions. 

In the spirit of Jack Nicholson’s mad piano player, I run a weekly set of quality interviews with writing pioneers—delivering some practical, unexpected advice about web publishing.
 
Jason Boog:
How did you survive during your lean years as a writer? How did you balance your day job and your writing? Continue reading...

Vikram Chandra:
For me, having a creative writing MFA was very useful, for somebody else it might not be.

If you have some other skill, [you should use it]. I was a geek, it helped me survive the lean times. It’s very rare that somebody makes a living from writing.

The most valuable thing a writer can have is time.

If you have a job that gives you some time during the week to devote to your writing, that is a wonderful thing.  I know people who have regular job and do writing in their free time, I think of them as heroic figures.

Always have time to devote to the work you find most exciting.

If you want to read the complete Chandra interview, click here.