Durjoy Datta: I’d have been a better writer had I been tested more when I was young

A. I think I used to be more prolific than I’m now. Until a few years ago, I was writing two books a year. I have slowed down now because I’m a father now, there’s crippling self-doubt, and of course, the internet.

I write a book a year now which is still not bad, I guess. I can write a lot because I really like to do it and there’s nothing else I would rather do. My best days are when I write a lot. Or when I read.

A. My editor, Vaishali Mathur, decides on my titles. She gives me a bunch of options and I pick one of them. I really liked the title. Of course, this book is not titled like say, “She Broke Up, I Didn’t. . . I Just Kissed Someone Else”, which was fun at the time, but now, it feels like I was trying too hard to be funny. So, titles are best left to editors who know what they are doing.

A. The perk is you have someone working on the book who has some stake in the book. The pitfall is your ego. When I was younger, I wasn’t unsure about my voice; so, I could write with co-authors. Now I don’t think I can do that. I wouldn’t suggest this route to anyone who’s sure about their writing.

A. No, there isn’t. I have tried doing that in the past and failed miserably. I have tried to construct bestsellers and study my own books that have worked better but it hasn’t worked for me. So now, I write books that I want to write.

A. The first step is excitement about a new idea. Then comes the dampener. There are no new ideas. I search and find that there are many books already written on the new idea. I buy them all and read them all. Then, I find that the idea might be the same, but I have a different way of saying it. Then I start writing. Haphazardly at first, quite pointlessly too, but then, slowly everything gets sharper and into focus.

The correct answer is that I don’t know until I’m 70 percent into the book. It’s like driving in the dark with your headlights off.

A. I would have been a much better writer had I been tested a little bit more when I was young. When you get published early, your growth is hampered. The boon is that I could make a career out of it because I started getting paid very early.

A. I enjoy writing books more. There are no budget constraints, no TRPs, no reliance on actors. But writing for TV is a more dynamic process compared to the solitary activity of writing a book. And if a TV show fails you only shoulder a part of the blame, but when a book fails, it’s all you.

A. It only got frowned upon—and sometimes quite rightly so—in literature festivals by semi-literary writers and by extremely well-read readers mostly because they couldn’t fathom why so many people liked the books they didn’t like. Most buyers in bookstores don’t care about literary/commercial. It’s a terminology only known to us.

A. Hannibal Lecter series by Thomas Harris, The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri, and Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie.

A. Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus.