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Seven years into writing a novel, I started to lose my mind.

Akhil Sharma

If anybody reads an Indian newspaper, all these things are obvious, and so I am not breaking news. All I am doing is representing my community as it actually is.
AKHIL SHARMA

Abortion Breaking Community News Newspaper Obvious People Read
Certainly the details of our life are unique. Spending time thinking of how I am different from someone else, however, does not tend to be very productive.
AKHIL SHARMA

Certainly Detail Different How Life Someone Spend Think Thinking Unique
The little babies are missing their families from their past lives.
AKHIL SHARMA

Baby Family Life Memories Missing Past
There are also so many emotional aspects to money – feelings of inadequacy, feelings of security. I am not sure if there needs to be more about money in fiction, but the absence of this aspect can make a story feel somehow frictionless and unreal.
AKHIL SHARMA

Aspect Emotional Feeling Fiction How Inadequacy Money Security Unreal
As a human being living one’s life, one is more open to relief when there is rain or the expectation of rain. That readiness for hope gets manifested in my stories and that of many other Indian writers.
AKHIL SHARMA

Being Expectation Human Life Living More Open Rain relief
The tears loosen their memories so they can slide away. They cry at the life they have lost, and then they cry at everything they’ll forget.
AKHIL SHARMA

Away Cry Everything Forget Loose Lost Memory Slide Tear
I can guide them to books that will serve as role models. Largely, though, one learns to write almost like developing muscle memory, and this requires years of effort.
AKHIL SHARMA

Book Develop Effect Guide Large Memory Model Muscle Require Role
We all become afraid. We all look at others and think these other people are more fortunate than us.
AKHIL SHARMA

Afraid Become Fortunate Other People Think
The monsoon is such a dominant part of Indian life that it is hard to overstate its importance.
AKHIL SHARMA

Country Different Dominant Importance Indian Life Monsoon Rain Such
I realized that he was writing about good people doing good things. This did not match my experience of life and so I found my sentences stretching and becoming less plain.
AKHIL SHARMA

Experience Good Less People Plain Realized Sentence Stretch Thing
Also, I have to assume that readers are sophisticated enough to know that not every person in a community is the same, and so there are many people who would not force an abortion just because a fetus is female.
AKHIL SHARMA

Assume Community Female Many Person Reader Same Sophisticated
One’s life completely changes based on the rain. After the monsoon, because the dust settles, one can see further and so it feels like one’s eyesight has improved or that one is living in a different country where there is more light.
AKHIL SHARMA

Change Completely Country Difficult Dust Feel Light Monsoon More Rain Settle
The babies have old souls and the old souls have to shrink to become little babies.
AKHIL SHARMA

Baby Become Little Old Soul Shrink
It is hard to write about physically difficult things without causing the reader to disengage.
AKHIL SHARMA

Causing Difficult Disengage Physical Reader Writing
Novels should be judged rigorously. Either a book works or it doesn’t. The fact that something is true in the real world should not lend authority to it in fiction.
AKHIL SHARMA

Authority Book Fact Fiction Novel Real Something True World Writing
I tend to think that we are all pretty much alike. We all feel despair. We all have problems with relationships.
AKHIL SHARMA

Alike Much People Pretty Thinking Unique

Seven years into writing a novel, I started to lose my mind.

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Seven years into writing a novel, I started to lose my mind.

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