Struggles of writing a political biography
As a young writer and someone with no experience of writing a book, I began my journey of writing a political biography with a lot of research and confusion. After a year’s research that included touring places and meeting my sources, I began writing the chapters of my book — which lacked coherence. The initial struggles were aplenty. From trying to stick to the outline of each chapter to ensuring the flow and getting the facts right, it was rollercoaster ride of emotions.
Why was it challenging, you ask? The political biography had to be factually right because it is the life story of one of the most prominent leaders in India, N. Chandrababu Naidu, and he is currently in power. Aware of the risks, I kept writing chapter by chapter until it took me a while to figure out that my writing kept changing and improving with each and every chapter I wrote.
Gradually, I realised that my writing style differed from one chapter to another. I went back to chapter 1 and re-wrote it until I was remotely satisfied with its flow and shape. It took me 8 months to write, fact-check and re-write, with a lot of proof-reading from trustworthy people.
While I was struggling with a finished script, unsure of whether it was good enough. I was fortunate enough to find my publisher soon after I finished. While it gave me a relief initially, the whole process was taxing. It made me anxious and gave me sleepless nights with countless questions popping in my head. After all the hullabaloo, the book launch progressed well, amid a lot of challenges politically and otherwise too.
While I’m still struggling to market my book “India’s Glocal Leader” which is a first definitive biography of N. Chandrababu Naidu, I realise that my age has become a barrier for a lot of people to trust the book. I do realise that politics is not of everyone’s interest. But, I also strongly believe that a person’s age doesn’t determine his/her intellect. It is the experiences and exposure that defines a person.
With this book, I also happen to be one of India’s youngest political biographers. If there’s one thing I’ve learnt through these 2 years of writing a book, it is this: “If you haven’t tried and gone through the challenges, you never would’ve been where you are.” And, this is what keeps me going.
You can order a copy of the book on Amazon: https://goo.gl/ddeKxy
