For the longest time, I have always wanted to be a writer and publish a book. When I was I was in my late teens, I wrote a 14-chapter story that I wanted to publish, but I deleted it a few weeks later because I thought it was too childish. Maybe someday, I might revisit the story and try to get it published- fingers crossed.
You Never Forget Your First
My first written piece was a poem called "Afro Clown" (something I wrote based on a picture I had drawn) when I was 14 years old. Since then, I have not been able to write another good poem, but I got pretty good at short story writing.
I have been writing short stories since my early teens and, in my opinion, got pretty good at it with each new piece. I am especially proud of a horror story I wrote for a competition when I was in college called "My Toy Store". It won first place.
Unfortunately, I haven't been able to write as many short stories as I would like considering that I had writer's block for a while, and then I got a job. I still write stories for my work, but they are mainly news-based or human interest stories. Don't get me wrong, I like writing human interest stories, but I would also like to write something purely based on my imagination.
My First Book... Sort Of
While I was in college, some of my stories (and my one poem) were included in the respective institutions' magazines but I never considered my work to be "published", although I was immensely proud. Even at work, my articles have been published in our monthly magazine but they still, somehow, don't feel like my own.
Recently, however, a friend contacted me and asked if I could write something in short for a book she was compiling. She explained that the book would be called "Quarantime" and would contain stories, poems, essays etc. by 100 different writers on the theme of the COVID-19 pandemic and the lockdown/quarantine.
She approached me pretty last minute and told me that I would have three to four days to submit a piece, the biggest catch was that I had to write something that wouldn't exceed 450 words. I was apprehensive at first but decided to get over myself and chance. I told her that I would write a short story, although I was really worried about the word limit as I tend to write long pieces.
Anyhoo...
I did it! I wrote the short story and it got published. The book came out on Amazon recently and if you are interested, you can purchase the same here.
"Quarantime" has content in English and Hindi so as to appeal to a large audience.