"The End of Kate's Era" - I was flat the moment I checked the cover page of this book. And Leadstart Publishing has provided me opportunity to interview the author Vineet Pandey.
Can you brief our readers about your educational and professional background?
I did my +2 schooling in Kanpur and Allahabad. Then finished my Engineering, like everyone else in this country, from VIT Vellore. Have a Diploma in creative writing from IGNOU, New Delhi.
Post graduation, I did a small stint in a local company called Telelinks in Allahabad, where I was a door to door photocopy machine salesman. Then worked in Tata Technologies, Pune, before finally getting into a Nomadic life, with its off base location as Mumbai. Now I do Theatre, write and trying to create videos which can bring smile and light (hopefully) in people’s life.
When did you start writing?
I wrote my first piece in school for my summer vacations project, back in mid 90’s. Though the major intention was to fill in the pages, but then, I remember I was in my village and fortunately happen to read Poos ki Ek Raat by Munshi Premchand. And that story, clubbed with the scenic impressions of my village, tuned my sub-conscious in such a way that I didn’t realize when I started describing the scenery of the village to fill pages for a Social study project. Later when I was appreciated by my teacher for the piece, I read and re-read it to understand what I have done.
When did you decide to become a writer?
Frankly, till now I haven’t decided to be a Full-time writer. I know for sure that I have so many emotions and stories which are unique yet commonly relatable. I knew this long back and all I needed was to vent out these stories, experiences, understandings etc. Initially it was just gatherings of guys with me sitting in the center, then to me being on stage and then eventually using print as a medium for now.
What are your ambitions for your writing career?
I have no genuine ambitions for my Writing career, because I don’t treat this as one. May be because am new, immature and more idealistic now. All I want from my stories is to have that transportive power which made me write those. All my ambitions revolve around me trying to get out my inner self, and writing is one of the mediums. And if in this process if am able to make a living out of it(writing), I would consider my life to be a bliss.
Can you describe your current book in few lines? What’s it about?
It’s a story of a future world, when the Earth and the Universe is about to experience its ‘Sonic Boom’. The story starts immediately after the War between Man and Machine. The Planets are the lowest most Gods in the hierarchy of Gods, responsible to take care of Life on Planet Earth. But this sonic Boom had divided the group of planets in two sects. One segment wants the life to end before the Sonic Boom and the other wants a natural End, without interfering anything. In fact the Man-Machine War was the first failed attempt from the other group with the intent to wipe out Life from Planet Earth. Hence Ketu, the devil lord has arrived on the planet again to attain the so called Perfect End for the Planet.
Give us an insight into your main characters
- Ketu: The Headless devil Lord, who has arrived on the planet. He has human body and Head here on the planet. He is stern, brutal and focused yet confused and curious at times because of his Human head.
- Euleen: The most ferocious warrior from the life side. She has been involved with a lot of processes to protect the planet, under the guidance Guru’s.
- Guru Aumrauth Theven: He runs the Ashram in one part of the planet Earth and is the key character in gathering and preparing the army of warriors against the raging war against Life from the Ketu side.
- Shadeepsi: She is the queen of the cursed souls of Shapits. She helps Ketu gather his army of Zodiacs and helps him guide through the planet, which is relatively new to Ketu.
Where did you get idea for this book?
While working in Pune, one of my school Friend Jay Chakraborty, wrote a book on Numerology. That was when my interest grew in the occult sciences. I, being a science student, started making tangible conclusions from the foundations of occult and my understandings and observations of science and the real world. I started reading, exploring and experimenting. And that was when I started looking at the planets in astrology from a third person point of view, as characters, fascinated by their nature, characteristics, powers and effect stories. And those observations made me realize the potential of the story of the world of these characters.
In last 7 years, we have seen gigantic wave of books on mythological history. Did this wave help you to get your book selected by publisher? Would you like to tell us how the initial response of publishers for this book was?
To be truthful, I don’t know whether this wave helped me or my work to get through the scrutiny. But yes, I do am aware of the fact that in a country like ours, where readers are so scarce, it definitely cheers me up when I see that the genre of my first book has a relatively better audience base. As far as my publisher’s first response is considered, I think it was all good and overwhelming for me. I went through their submission page on Leadstart’s website. And with a step by step process going from synopsis to submitting first few chapters and then to meeting the group, all went smooth.
How much research did you do for this book?
Like mentioned before, Astrology came easy to me and was a little fun, relatively. If we go by time, it took almost a year to understand the basics of astrology and its characters. And by the time I got the idea to write my first few chapters, I already was doing astrological readings for people. All my books, channels and people which helped me during the process are mentioned in the acknowledgement.
What was the most difficult thing about writing your latest book?
The most difficult part of writing a fantasy fiction is to create uniqueness in your self-created dystopian world and not get influenced by any pre-existing work which already had portrayed such thing, consciously or sub consciously. Once the set is ready, rest all is easy as rest all is story.
Do you have a trailer or do you intend to create one for your own book?
What are you working on at the minute?
Right now I am working on two different projects. One is a collection of short stories which I am trying to release in form of a coloring book. Second is a video series which aims at registering the metamorphosis moments of people, which will be out very soon.
What are your thoughts on writing a book series?
This is the first book in my The End series. I hope it goes out well. Except having an advantage of an already existing Book name I think every new book faces the same amount of effort and time.
What advice would you give to aspiring writers?
The only piece of advice I think I have for aspiring writers, primarily the story tellers, is to try to write in that point of the day, when you are the most YOU, when you are closest to your real self. Fix that hour, maintain a strict discipline and keep experimenting with life, stories will flow automatically.
Links for your book readers
- Blog: https://vineetpandeystories.wordpress.com/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/vineetpandeystories/
- Amazon Book Page: http://amzn.to/2kfCtyT
- Flipkart Book Page: http://fkrt.it/We2pS!NNNN
- Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36538549-the-end---ketu-s-era
Posts
0 comments:
Post a Comment