SIMULTANEOUS BUT SUCCESSFUL JOURNEY OF A PATHOLOGIST IN THE REALM OF WRITING ROMANTIC SAGAS
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| Mrs. SUNANDA J. CHATTERJEE |
The Crow and the
Peacock, a women’s fiction novel, is likely to be released on August 31, 2021. Its
link is: http://mybook.to/TCATP
BRIEF PROFILE OF THE
AUTHOR:
Mrs. Sunanda J. Chatterjee writes romantic sagas
and family dramas and her themes include the immigrant experience, women’s
issues and medicine. She loves extraordinary, heartwarming tales of duty,
bravery and love. Her books have been the Top 100 bestsellers on Amazon USA and
Amazon India, in Asian Literature, Indian Writing and Asian Drama categories.
Her short stories have appeared in anthologies, short-story.net and
induswomanwriting.com. She grew up in Bhilai, India and now lives in Arcadia,
California with her husband. She has two wonderful children and a grandson.
When she is not by the microscope or creating imaginary worlds, she reads,
sings, goes on long walks and binge-watches old TV dramas.
Social Media Links:
Amazon page: https://www.amazon.com/Sunanda-J-Chatterjee/e/B00YNT97AS
Website: www.sunandachatterjee.com
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Q Are you a professional
writer? How many of your books have been published so far?
I am a freelance author
and a full-time pathologist. I have published 15 books and another one is with
the editor, for publication later this year. Right now, I am working on a
hospital-based romance series.
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Q What is your specific
field of writing? Are there any specific reasons for choosing this particular
field?
All my stories feature a strong female lead, be it women’s fiction or romance subgenres. Despite what women go through in real life, we have many strengths, that are often masked by society & family situations and which shine through only when the situation is dire. My stories touch upon social issues but have underpinnings of love in all the forms. Each family has secrets, vices, scandals, relatives who make bad choices, friends involved in scandals and pasts that prevent the members from leading fulfilling lives. I enjoy the dynamics that threaten to ruin the unstable equilibrium because these issues make for a great backdrop for family dramas.
My best-selling women’s fiction book is, Fighting for Tara, set in rural Rajasthan, in which a young girl is widowed and is asked to drown her baby girl in order to remarry. Instead, she escapes with her baby and undertakes a perilous journey. She lies her way to America, but must undo her lie in order to save her baby again. I explore all the angst a mother goes through, in order to save her child.
In my romantic saga series, The Wellington Estates, all the stories are based on characters with connections to an exclusive community in the foothills of San Gabriel Mountains in Southern California. They are privileged and wealthy, and they fall in love with people who are deemed unacceptable in their social circles, for money, race or profession.
These stories are not straight-out
romance, although the romantic element is strong in each novel and it drives
the story. But other characters also get the spotlight and parts of the stories
are told from the parents’ or friends’ point of view, a feature not usual in
contemporary romance. I like to call this genre as romantic saga, bridging
romance and women’s fiction.
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Q Do you promote and
recommend writing of books jointly? In your opinion what are the areas of
benefits and problems, in such joint ventures?
I promote with a
wonderful group of authors from The Book Club (TBC). They write mostly romance,
but some write women’s fiction, suspense and even poetry. We help each other in
our author-journey and promote new releases. Many times a book is fantastic,
but just needs more exposure. If everyone promotes a book on social media, more
readers can see its availability. Besides sales, it helps because of the
camaraderie it creates. Writing is a lonely business otherwise. Although I have
written stories for anthologies, I don’t co-author or write books jointly with
other authors.
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Q On an average, how
many months do you take to complete one book, in all respects?
Once I have an idea in
my mind, I type out a very basic plot-line (after discussing it with my
daughter, a free-lance editor with an astute mind). Then I start fleshing out
the scenes, separate them into chapters and move chapters around. Once I have a
good first draft, I edit and re-edit. Then it goes to my content editor for her
input. Following that I rewrite parts and move things around. After that I send
it to my beta-readers, the prime one being my sister. Once I incorporate their
suggestions, I send it to my daughter for final edits and proofreading. While
she is working on it, I choose a cover and line up my pre-release date. The
whole process takes between 5-6 months.
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Q Besides the quality of
writing, in your opinion, what are the other factors for the success of a book?
Exposure, Exposure,
Exposure. A great book may lie in the depths of Amazon, never to be seen by
potential readers who would love it. That’s why exposure is so important. That
can come from advertising and cooperation with other authors, who post about
your book on their social media. And of course, a great deal of luck is also
involved. In my opinion, writing 2-3 books a year for independent authors is also
a must or else their readers forget them. There is a saying “Out of sight, out
of mind”.
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Q Has Facebook helped
you in any way, in your writing career or even otherwise? If yes, please
elucidate.
People visit Facebook to
de-stress. So, while someone is relaxing and your book ad pops up on their feed
and they are your target readers, they may click on the link to learn more.
Thus, it helps with advertising. Besides this, many authors post about their
stories and thus it is an excellent place to connect with others in the field.
Authors help others post about their new release and it gets more eyes on the
book.
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Q When did you become
interested in writing?
I have been writing stories from a
young age. In fact, I recently discovered a story I had begun to write in my
diary as a fifth-grader and had a great laugh about it with my daughter.
Growing up in a small steel town, everyone in my neighbourhood was an engineer
or a doctor and the social and family pressure to conform was immense. So I
became a doctor, joined the Indian Air Force for five years, did PhD (6 years
in Cancer research) and Pathology residency (4 years with a focus on Cancer
diagnosis). I was always busy with academics and work and only when I started
working as a pathologist did I decide that it was time to take the plunge in
writing, so to speak. My first novel took me ten years from start to
publication, with many hurdles along the way. Since then I’ve published 3-4
books a year and hope to keep going despite my full-time job. My passion has always been to integrate everything I see in life
into heartwarming, insightful stories of duty, bravery and love. Medicine
satisfies my brain, and writing satisfies my heart.
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Q Have your family
members and friends helped and/or contributed in any way, in your writing
career?
My sister and my
daughter read everything I write and provide valuable insight into the story.
My author friends from TBC also help in choosing covers and helping advertise.
We also encourage each other to keep writing. In fact, we have a WhatsApp group
devoted to posting how many words we wrote that day, a Daily Word Count group.
If we’ve been busy and didn’t write, we see others’ progress and are encouraged.
We help each other through writer’s block and the crises in life. It’s a very
helpful resource.
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Q What is your opinion
about e-books? Due to this concept of e-books, is the survival of printed books
in future in jeopardy?
When I started out, I
sold more print books than ebooks. In fact, for my first novel, I didn’t even
plan to publish an ebook. But on the advice of author friends, I started
publishing both. Now my ebook sales are hundred times those of my print book
sales.
Because of the number of
books I was selling as ebooks, I too started reading on my kindle app. especially
while travelling. It is easy to download
a few books on the kindle and choose the one you want to read. Not to mention that
it is light and easy to pack. That said, I don’t think print books will go out
of vogue anytime soon. There are lots of people, not just the older generation,
but young folk who prefer the feel and the smell of paper in their hands. I am
one of them, but I do enjoy the ease of reading on kindle too.
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Q What is your advice to the budding
authors?
Write what you love and what you love to read. You don’t realize
the nuances you’ll pick up from just reading a lot on your genre: about
character arcs, plot structure, dialogue and themes. Because you may write for
yourself, but if you want to make it your livelihood, you must bow to reader
expectations.
Read about how to write, take a writing course, join writer’s
groups or critique groups to solidify your basics, otherwise you’ll waste a lot
of time re-editing. I know this from experience, because it took me ten years
and eight full edits before publishing my first book, The Vision.
No matter how well you write, get an editor regardless of
whether you want to go the indie publishing route or traditional publishing.
You know your story too well and won’t find plot holes, but an outside look by
an impartial editor will help strengthen your story.
---------vijaiksharma
