Living with the Ghost By Nandini Nayar

Hyderabad based children's author Nandini Nayar is out with her 50th book for kids. She has been writing for nearly 13 years.

Picture courtesy:www.nandininayar.in

Congratulations on your 50th book- Living with the Ghost.

Thank you! I wasn’t sure which of my books would be the fiftieth and when copies of this book arrived, I was thrilled. It is a special book for various reasons.  This is my fifteenth title with Mango with whom I’ve done some amazing books. And then it turned out to be my fiftieth book for children as well!

Living with the Ghost is low on the fear factor. Was it planned or did the editor ask you to tone it down?

Saraswathy Rajagopalan, the editor at Mango, is a wonderful person to work with.

She never interferes with the writer’s vision; she merely steers it in directions that

help make the story better. This book was never meant to be a ghost story; the title

is enough to tell you that! I wrote it because I am fascinated by children who can

spin tall tales in the most convincing manner. I recall a few such children from my

own childhood and how difficult it was for credulous people like me to separate

reality from fiction.  The Phantom, in the book, is one such boy. He is secretive and

clever and he manages to get his entire family believing in the ghost!

Was the book inspired by your skepticism about ghosts in childhood? Did the

inspiration for The Phantom come from your brother?

I was a very imaginative child and the smallest hint of anything strange was enough

to keep me awake all night. I still can’t watch a horror movie without shutting my

eyes and plugging my ears but I love writing ghost stories.  

The character of The Phantom is inspired by several boys I knew in my childhood,

including my brother. I recall a boy in my class coming to school with a package

that made an eerie whirring noise. He convinced the entire class that he had a strange

worm inside the package. When it was finally unwrapped it was nothing but a

pencil tightly wound around a rubber band. The noise was caused by the pencil

slowly unwinding. The Phantom does pretty much the same thing with his family,

in the book!     

Your last three creations (Living With the Ghost, The Curious Case of the Sweet

and Spicy Sweetshop and story in the anthology- The Puffin Book of Holiday

Stories) have supernatural elements in them. Have you been reading/watching

too much of horror lately? Are you moving to the horror genre?

I have always loved reading horror stories though I have a strange relation with

horror films – don’t dare to watch them and can’t bear to miss them! Stephen King

is one of my favourite authors and I have read and re-read most of his work (except

Pet Semetary which terrified me so much the first time I read it that I have not

dared to go back to it).   

I also love writing horror stories and have been fortunate to have several published.
I have a collection of ghost stories from Mango titled The Haunted School and
Other Stories (sadly out of print now). I also have a novel titled The Girl in the
Mirror, which I enjoyed writing and which was published by Mango. Don’t Tell
our Mother is another horror novel that I have written, published by Juggernaut and
targeted at the 12+ age group. This is a story about childhood and growing up and
how sometimes childhood monsters come back to haunt us. Again, I absolutely
loved writing this one.  

I don’t think I can ever move to any one genre of writing. There are some ideas that
are obviously meant for the picture book or short story format, there are others that
demand a deeper exploration and so, I move between genres.

A lot of what I write comes out of what I am going through at that moment, what
I am reading and experiencing. For example, the idea for Don’t Tell Your Mother
came when the house next door was being demolished.  In fact, I wrote the first
few chapters when the demolition was going on next door and the clouds of dust,
the way the house was being laid bare for the world to see helped me write the story.  

Your story A summer Diary in The Puffin Book of Holiday Stories has an
interesting diary story format. What made you choose it?

I like to make every story I write stand out in some way or the other. In
The Chicken that Started it All, I did it by presenting the point of view of a
chicken, in This is How it Happened, I imagined various important moments in
Indian history from the point of view of the marginalised. The four books about
Apoorva – Apoorva’s Fat Diary, Meanie.com, Dear Aunty and Laugh Out Loud,
Apoorva – are in the dairy format. But what makes them stand out are the lists and
equations, the knock-knock and elephant jokes.  

Often, though, the word count can stop you experimenting with format, point of
view or narrative structure. So when I was given 3000 words to write a story about
holidays for Puffin, I was pleased. It provided me with the scope to try out
something new.

As far as the idea for the story goes, I had to only remember my own summer
vacations and how much my brother and I bickered during this time! It was like a
never-ending battle between the two of us and I am sure we drove our parents mad.
The only time we didn’t quarrel was when we were reading!

That memory provided me with my protagonists – Ashwin and his sister Asha.
And then I had to think of something to make them stop quarreling long enough
to appreciate each other. I wanted a format that would help me focus on the
important aspects of the vacation and that’s why I chose to write it as Ashwin’s
dairy.  That’s how the rest of the story came about. Again, it was a story that I
really enjoyed writing and I am glad readers like you appreciate the format.

You have written nonfiction and fiction for all ages of kids. What kind of books
do you enjoy writing the most?

Fiction! Fiction is my first love. I like nothing better than creating stories and
peopling them with characters. Having said that, I am always open to nonfiction
projects. When Mango asked if I’d be interested in a book on Rani Lakshmibai
my first instinct was to say no. But it was a challenge and next to writing fiction
I love the challenge of writing different kinds of things. So, I said yes and it turned
out to be a wise decision. I enjoyed the research that went into the book and I really
enjoyed writing the book.

I’ve written short stories, picture books, novels of varying lengths and non-fiction.
Each of these comes with its own set of challenges and its own rewards. A picture
book is challenging because you have to keep it simple and yet narrate a story.
Novels are scary because you have to plot out the events, think of the various
characters and most important of all, get the tone of the book right in first two
chapters. If the atmosphere isn’t what you wanted, then it’s better to start over
again.  

After having 50 books published, is it easy to get your books published?

NO! I get this a lot, this assumption that things are easier for me because I have
been around so long and written so much. But I have the same butterflies in
my stomach when I send off a manuscript as I did with my first book. Every
submission, even after my fiftieth book, is like my first submission.

What are your dream projects for future? If publishers agree to publish
whatever you write,what kind of books/themes would you like to explore
writing?

Publishers agreeing to publish whatever I write would be the dream! If that

did happen, I would focus on writing more novels for children of different ages.

I would love to do a series of chapter books. I have had two chapter books published

and I enjoyed writing them. There’s a sort of clean-cut approach to writing books

for newly independent readers that I find very liberating. It allows you to focus on a

single theme and explore it thoroughly. Writing for older children is more

complicated, like solving a jigsaw puzzle and that’s something I would definitely

like to do.

When was your first book released? What advice do you wish someone had
given you when you started your career?

My first book was Pranav’s Picture and it was published in 2005. I had sent
this story and also the story What Shall I Make? to Tulika publishers. These
were my first ever submissions and they were both accepted. What Shall I Make?
was published in 2006 and it’s had several reprints. In 2010 it was chosen as an
Outstanding book by the United States Board on Books for Young Readers. At
this time I was already writing short stories that were published in Deccan Herald.
Soon, I began to write for The Hitavada, The Hindu, Tinkle and later, Sakal Times.
I knew no one who was writing or who could advice me on what to do. So I did
things my own way. This involved reading a lot and writing a lot. I found authors
whose writing literally made me sit up and I read up all I could about them. These
authors were my gurus and I learnt all I did about writing from them.

I am glad that I found out all these things on my own and that I allowed the lives
and successes of others to inspire me.Since I had no one but my long distance gurus
to learn from, it never occurred to me that I needed any advice.As a
result of this,I am not really comfortable giving advice because I have found that people
only follow it when they are motivated enough to.And if you are that motivated, then
you don't need any advice.

In terms of your writing space, time, discipline and efforts , how much
have you changed since you wrote your first book?

When I wrote my first book my son was very small. In fact, the first lot of stories
that were published as picture books – Pranav’s Picture, What Shall I Make?,
Where is Amma?, Pranav’s First Day at School, How Pranav Went to School
-were all written for him. My writing time depended entirely on his schedule. I’ve
written sitting beside him while he slept, I’ve also written while I waited for him
to come out of his school. This changed as he got older.  I had time during the day
when he went to school so I wrote then. I discovered then that all the writers whom
I admired so much followed a strict schedule. So I developed a schedule of my
own and tried my best to stick to it. I made it a point to write every single day. Of
course, there were times when I had to put all work aside for a variety of personal
reasons. But I try to stick to my routine as far as possible.