I meet so many people who say they have a story to tell. Many of them say they made a concerted effort to put their ideas into words. The most common roadblock — the story got told within a few pages. There is actually nothing wrong with this. The greatest of epics can be condensed into a few short paragraphs, depending on the detail you wish to share. For a story to become a book, it has to blossom, get dissected, and be laid out threadbare.

The first manuscript I worked on as an assistant editor was a collection of notebooks with photocopied content pasted in some sequence. These strips of paper were interspersed with handwritten notes and, at some places, instructions to insert ‘relevant text’. I learned how rewriting is the silent protagonist letting writing and authorship fuel their egos to take centre stage. I still believe writing alone does not take me far with an idea. Revisiting and rewriting multiple drafts until the original one seems juvenile tells me I am making progress. There must be an easier way to do this. I hope to upskill someday. Till then, it is the donkey’s way with me.

I would be very ‘artificially inane’ not to mention AI here. I truly abhor the way people are abusing its generative features to become writers and authors nowadays. Especially the ones whose writing skills are strictly limited to generating ‘prompts’. That is the end of my grouse. I think being a writer and author is still fun. I believe I should not give up doing something simply because there are ‘tools’ enabling everyone to do it. Ghostwriters have always been around. Stardom has always outweighed substance in the publishing world. Challenges will always be. I have survived long enough with human intellect to be wary of Artificial Intelligence. I am trying to get acquainted. If we can learn a few things together, it might be fun.    

Here are a few manuscripts I could rewrite enough to put between two covers. Please have a look. In the coming year or two, I hope to add a few.