Prem Rao : Stories from a Story Teller
Stories from a Story Teller
A bomb blast at a famous sporting event. The Boston Marathon. Kills 3 people and leaves over 180 injured. The first major attack of this type in the US since 9/11.
A key suspect , many on Twitter have it, is a young man who has been missing since March 16, over a month ago. His name is Sunil Tripathi.
A dead of night shoot out in an University town leaves a police office gunned down. One of the two perpetrators is killed in this gun battle.
It’s been over two years since my debut novel, “ It Can’t Be You”( Cedar, 2010) was published. Since then I have written and had published an anthology of short stories titled, ” He Sees Everything & Other Short Stories” (Smashwords, 2011) and another thriller, “Lucky For Some, 13.” (Mahaveer, 2012.)
I started writing full-time rather late in life, as you might know. I was 59 when my debut novel was published. I had spent most of my working life, over 35 years, as a Human Resources and Talent Management specialist, firstly in the corporate sector and later for a decade as an entrepreneur and independent consultant.
It was perhaps inevitable that I would be frequently asked if I had written about “People Management” or ” Organizational Development” and things of that kind. Indeed most people were shocked when they came to know that I had written fiction, and even more shocked when I told them I wrote thrillers.
I guess the urge to write thrillers came from my reading interests as a kid. I was a major fan of James Hadley Chase, Ian Fleming, Alistair MacLean, Frederick Forsyth, and Jack Higgins, to name but a few. It was natural therefore for me to attempt to write a thriller first.
What makes me, or anyone else like to write thrillers? I liked this interesting article by Matt Richtel in the New York Times. I thought about it and I can say I don’t think I had any such experiences as Matt had which influenced me to become a thriller writer.
It’s demanding. It’s tiring. It’s crazy…but it’s fun! It is exhilarating to work on multiple projects as I am now doing. To look at it chronologically, I still do whatever I can to boost my debut novel, a psychological thriller called, “It Can’t Be You”. This was published in November 2010. I am awaiting the publication of my second thriller, “Lucky For Some, Thirteen.” This should be out in the shops in June-July 2012. I am waiting for it to be available on a pre-order basis on Flipkart first. Continue reading “Juggling Between Projects”
Yesterday, at the Pan South India Alumni Meet of XLRI at the grand ITC Gardenia Continue reading “Lines from “It Can’t Be You””
Some people were talking to me recently at a party. The topic turned to writing as a full-time profession. A young man said,”It must be fun to live the good life, earning so much that you just write all day long, which anyway is something you love doing.” I said, “I am doing this as a second career after retirement. Don’t forget I worked for more than 35 years as a professional before taking to writing.” I went on to say, “You have to be a top-notch writer, with a few lucky breaks thrown in for good measure, to be able to live only on the strength of your earnings through your writing.” I don’t mean to be discouraging but a lot of people in India, especially the young, seem to have too rosy a picture of the field of writing. They have a lot of spirit , which I greatly admire but sometimes in their enthusiasm lose sight of some harsh realities. Continue reading “Tips For Aspiring Authors”
This writing project has gone for a toss! It was so dear to my heart and I had great hopes of it becoming a published book that Wodehouse fans the world over would enjoy. However, the plan seems to have become unstuck. I failed in my attempt to persuade the Trustees of the Wodehouse Estate to grant permission for its eventual publication. They didn’t seem to have been impressed by my preliminary inquiry. Perhaps I should have made out a formal book proposal. Continue reading ““A Toast To Plum: Celebrating P.G.Wodehouse”- An Update”
I was delighted to accept an invitation to do a book reading for members of iBrowse, a book lovers club in Bangalore, India where I live. They have a laudable system where they invite authors to speak about their books.
I have started a new Facebook Page to consolidate all my writing work in one place. It’s called “Prem Rao, Story Teller”. I was delighted to find that it found mention in the Wall Street Journal recently. Continue reading “My new Facebook Page”
Sharing the author profile I updated recently at Amazon.com, UK.
I hope the title sums it up! This is my blog to keep you abreast of all that’s happening with regard to my stories.
Each of the pages describes one or the other of my writing projects. As you will see they cover a wide variety of topics. Some projects have been completed, some are work in progress but all are creations from out of my mind.
Prem Rao : Stories from a Story Teller 