That was the title that Random House and I decided on for my first book. This was a big first step for me and that’s where I remained for three months. I was petrified of the idea of writing about love. I mean, let’s face facts; I’m no authority on it. I knew I was supposed to keep the book light and fun, but at the same time I didn’t want to come across as frivolous. So the safest bet was to ignore it and take on various other projects so I could blur my vision and have things to put the blame on for my procrastination. Eventually it caught up with me and I found myself sitting at my desk for almost 7 months, whining a lot, writing some, facing existential issues, spending criminal amounts of time on a Tumblr blog called Bunnyfood, incessantly talking to my friends about potential chapters, wondering why my friends started avoiding me, lather, rinse, repeat.
By November, without having an aneurysm, I had the first draft of my book ready. I count this as a semi miracle. The second draft happened right after, pretty much around the time where I thought I should re-write everything because I was making myself nauseous thinking about how much better I could have made it (This is a lie. I had no idea. I didn’t have a single word in my head anymore. I had used them all up.).
Anyway, to cut a long story short, the book is ready and it’s out in 10 days. If I had to summarize the entire process, I’d have to say that I actually had a lot of fun writing it. It was a first, what’s not to like? And to be honest, my mother told me enough about love to actually put me in a position to write this book. What she didn’t pre-empt was my inability to deal with life… and love in my growing years and most of my twenties (Fine! All of my twenties). I’m just going to pin that on a bad attitude and society.
Anyway I figured I would make a quick checklist of things that flew at me while I was tackling this book.
1. ‘Thank you’ is not the correct response to ‘You’re uncouth’. No matter how cute the boy saying it is.
2. If you really have to impress someone make sure you eat well. A spit bubble mid-sentence with food in your mouth is no way of being sexy (or human).
3. It’s totally ok for someone to not like you. It’s also totally ok for you to go after them with a machete, but the adult way of tackling this would be to feign non-chalance and coolness. Or to leave the country.
4. If you break someones heart and are also the kind of person who likes puppies and kittens, then know that it will haunt your conscience for a long, long time (read forever). You will eventually have to psyche yourself to not think about it at all (It might not work).
5.If someone throws a rubber snake at you in the school canteen it means that they don’t really love you. At all.
I could keep going but that would totally sink all my plans for book 2. So I’ll stop. It’s out February 14th, but I have a pre-order link!
AND it has a robot on the cover. Boom.
Hangout LIVE With Juhi Pande, Shruti Seth & Manish Anand on February 7th, 12pm – click here to ask them your questions too!