A product manager during the day and a writer at night, Divya Anand turned an author with her debut book 'Dare Eat That' in 2019. It was followed by a picture book for kids titled 'I Hate My Curly Hair', which was released in 2020. In 2021, Divya's third book and first novel 'Written In the Stars' was published by Penguin India. Set in the backdrop of an e-commerce start-up in India, 'Written In the Stars' is a romantic comedy that follows Sitara and Abhimanyu and they navigate career, life, love and destiny.
In an exclusive interview, author Divya Anand tells us about her new novel, her writing journey, tips for aspiring writers, her upcoming book and more. Excerpts:
1. Tell us about your new romance fiction 'Written In the Stars'. How did you get the idea to try writing a novel?
Normally I read a lot, but in the pandemic, I found myself in a rut. The two genres which I could read were children's books and romantic comedy-- as both were light reads and stories about a normal life where you aren't locked up inside a house. I also wanted to write something light and that's when this idea suddenly got stuck in my head. A few years ago I had a co-worker who mentioned that he followed astrology very stringently. He would set up his meetings or make work decisions based on astrology and I found it to be very funny because typically in the tech world you don't find people who are stuck on astrology or horoscopes; they are very analytical.
Secondly, I thought now everyone knows you are following astrology so how does it stop people from manipulating you on certain days. During the pandemic I thought this was an interesting premise for my new book-- while someone is manipulating you using a horoscope, there comes the comedy of errors. That's where the idea came from and the rest was completely fictional.
2. Out of Sitara and Abhimanyu in 'Written in the Stars', which character do you relate to the most?
Definitely Sitara because there are things I had drawn for her which I have. Like she has curly hair and I have curly hair. I was into astrology at one point in my life and that's a huge part of the book. Some shades of other people close to my heart have been thrown into her character.
3. 'Written in the Stars' is about Sitara and Abhimanyu and what destiny has in store for them. Do you too believe in destiny?
Not completely. There is a bit of destiny or luck, but it is also about what you do and the choices you make that make your life. From my personal life, my husband and I actually met at work as well (just like Sitara and Abhimanyu in the novel), he is also from the North and I'm from the South, and so on. But we also had a long-distance marriage for over three years, part of our long-distance relationship before we got married was when he was living in the US and I was in India. So it took a lot of hard work to make it work and not just destiny!
4. You have published three books in three different genres. Which was the most difficult one to write?
The most difficult one was the picture book. For two reasons: personally, I feel children are way more critical of what they like and don't like than adults. When I shared my manuscript with 4-6-year-old kids, I got some very sharp feedback. That makes it more challenging and more interesting to write for children. The second reason why it was difficult for me was because I never thought I would be able to write poetry. But somehow I wrote 32 pages of full-fledged verses for kids in my second book 'I Hate My Curly Hair'.
5. What lessons have you learned about writing and publishing through your journey as an author?
One of the biggest things that I have learned is how to manage to have a full-time job and to be an author.
I didn't know anything about publishing when I started. I just had this vague idea for my first book. Once I got connected with my editor is when I really learned about the publishing process. For debut authors, it helps if you have your write-up ready because everybody asks for the first three chapters and a synopsis when you pitch your idea to them. It helped me because once when my editor looked at the three chapters and was interested in the idea, I could very quickly send her the manuscript since it was ready.
Also, my debut book 'Dare Eat That' was about the bizarre foods that I ate around the world and it was supposed to be a memoir. My editor told me that this is not going to work because I'm not a famous person and instead, it would work better if it was written as a travelog. Though I knew there was a 50-50 chance of the book to be acquired, I rewrote it and showed it to her. Based on the feedback, I wrote it two more times before it finally got acquired. So, from that perspective, it is also important to take the feedback of someone from the industry because it will make a difference in your manuscript getting acquired or not getting acquired the first time around. And since then for my other two books I quickly had a chat with my editor about what's working and what's not working, which saved me the massive rewrites.
Even to get in touch with someone from the publishing industry is not easy. I had ofcourse sent mails to generic email ids. I also used to connect with people from the industry at litfests.
6. You're not a trained writer. How did you hone your writing skills?
I honed my writing skills entirely just by writing. I did spend five years at Amazon and the company makes you do a lot of writing, though it is of a different kind. Some principles of writing fiction and non-fiction also apply to writing business documents, which are: clarity of thought, using your writing to get your thoughts out there, and the way you construct sentences. That's one part of the craft.
I also used to blog a lot and I used to get comments and feedback from friends and family-- so that helped me improve. Even with my books, I do send my manuscripts to target readers through my extended network and get their feedback on what they liked and didn't like. I also read across genres. Whenever I'm working on a new genre, I read at least 10 or more books in that genre to get a sense of the voice, the style, and what other writer's are working so that I get a sense of that when I'm writing.
7. What are you working on next?
I'm currently writing a middle-grade children's book, which is very different from a picture book. It's about a girl who likes coding; she creates an app and the app gets into trouble. It's a mystery story. The book is expected to be out sometime in 2022.
