About Ishaan Saini:
I’m a student based in Dibrugarh, the tea city of India. I have recently appeared in the HSLC exam this year. I like to spend my time playing cricket and badminton on holidays. I am an ardent fan of thriller and sci-fi novels. I am a photography enthusiast and also a regular poet. I frequently pen down thoughts based on common questions and problems. I like acrobatics because it is a thing which helps me to move towards perfection every time I practice and I try to apply this in my daily life too. I’m a movie buff, I watch almost 10 new movies every month either at the theatre or at home by downloading them.
LiFT: Tell us about your book, the journey of writing it and its content.
Ishaan: My book, “A Journey of Life and Death:The Sojourn through time”, could be best described as a mystery-thriller-adventure novel. The story revolves around the cruise trip of siblings Ishaan and Ishita along with their friend Varun, which turns into a nightmare, a trip where death doesn’t seem too far when the ship’s crew go missing. How they resolve everything and how things get complicated with time travel. is the main plot of the story.
The journey of writing it has been very complicated. I had conceived the idea in 2016 and jot down the summary of the story that year so that I could write a novel on it. I began writing in 2017 but couldn’t devote myself much to the book in my daily life. I preferred to write during holidays and vacations. Then in 2018, I became too slow and I wasn’t able at all to manage my time between the book and daily life. I wrote only 2 chapters in the whole year. Then in the beginning of 2019, my mom motivated and encouraged me to finish what I had started. It was natural that with this motivation, I speeded up writing and finally finished it on 13 September, 2019.
I have always liked funny books and I made it sure that the readers of my book face loads of hilariousness along with the thrilling story. Comedy is something which doesn’t actually affect the story but it is in itself an achievement if the readers laugh and giggle on reading the book and are also gripped with the story at the same time. The content is basically light-toned and gripping.
LiFT: When did you realize that you want to be a writer and what’s your inspiration behind it?
Ishaan: I never decided to become a writer, but I have always been interested in writing. It has been my hobby since I learnt to read and write english. I just came up with this story in 2016 that I decided to write a novel on it. I had written two novellas before this but I didn’t want to publish them. I just wrote them for a hobby. Initially, I didn’t want to publish this one too, but my mum told me that this story is exciting enough to fascinate readers and it should come to public. So, that’s when I decided to become an author.
As I have already mentioned that writing has been my hobby, but reading novels is also a thing I prefer to do during my free time. The writers of those novels inspired me that I could also write a book when I have got a nice plot and some writing skills.
LiFT: What do think about the literary world and what are your expectations from it?
Ishaan: The literary world is so vast and varied that it is impossible to notice all its aspects. I have not been exposed to much distinct variants of literature but the ones that I have read and experienced have given me the basic idea that the literary world’s main objective is the enhancement of knowledge, critical thinking, writing and communication skills. Earlier when mass media wasn’t there nor was the internet, the literature was the only means to connect with, and acknowledge individuals about, the world. Even now, it has significant importance in everyday life as it connects individuals with larger ideas in the society and express theirs as well. I have been exposed to some popular novels, poems and short stories and from them I have learnt that studying literature helps us critically examine ourselves, our perspectives, our character and personality and the zest to learn and improve ourselves.
I just expect that the literary world keeps on growing and influencing individuals, the way it has been ever since. I have more expectations from the people, to extend their support towards the literary world as there has been a change in outlook in the recent decades and the importance of literature has somewhat declined, particularly books. But with good will and redevelopment imperative, we can surely rejuvenate the literary world and protect the greatest treasure of the human race i.e. literature.
LiFT: How much do you think the marketing or quality of a book is necessary to promote a particular book and increase its readers?
Ishaan: I believe that marketing is very necessary to promote a particular book and to increase its readers. This is because, hundreds of books are launched every day and it becomes quite difficult for an individual’s book to reach or be noticed by potential buyers. In such cases, it is essential that we promote our books as much as possible so that it may reach the potential buyers and increase its sale. Adequate promotion becomes particularly essential for a writer who doesn’t have a name in the market as an established writer,especially a debutant. Readers won’t notice debutants unless they make them to. So, at the end of the day, proper marketing is essential for any book to increase its readers.
LiFT: What is the message you want to spread among folks with your writings?
Ishaan: The messge that I want to spread among folks, particularly among teenagers, is that we all have some hidden talents within ourselves, that usually don’t come to light. But luckily, our hidden talent is something that we are instinctively interested in. We never realize that something which we love to do might be something we can be great at. All we need is to cultivate our interests and hobbies along with focusing on our academic life. One important lesson that I learnt from the journey of writing my book is that it is not more important to just focus on your academic life nor is to focus only on your hobbies, the more important thing is to manage time between both of them. Developing our interests might take time but we should remember that a seed develops into a seedling first and then gradually, into a plant. All of this takes time. So, we should never stress ourselves and cultivate our hobbies for fun, not expecting any results or benefits from them.
LiFT: What do you do apart from writing?
Ishaan: I’m a student based in Dibrugarh, the tea city of India. I have appeared in the HSLC exam this year. Also, I spend significant time playing cricket and badminton. I’m fond of photography and I usually find myself improving my skills in photography. I like reading novels whenever I get time. My favorite ones are thriller and scifi novels. I also like acrobatics and it is a thing that excites me to push my limits and move a step closer to perfection every time I practise.
LiFT: What are the activities you resort to when you face a writer’s block?
Ishaan: The first thing I do whenever I feel like I’m facing a writer’s block is that I leave writing on that day and try to indulge myself into some other tasks. I do this for the whole day and later at night, when I go to sleep, I think about what I had to write that day. This practice usually works with me and the ideas that I imagined at night, I jot them down the other day.
LiFT: What if your story will be adopted as a movie? Whom would you want to work as a director or actor in it?
Ishaan: To think that my story would be adopted in a movie, is way dreamy. But I think it would be a great movie, as I had written my book by imagining all the sequences and events, just like a movie. With the proper budget and screenplay, it could be an entertaining film, something which has never been seen before.
I would love Rohit Shetty to direct the film. He has got the taste of films which are like my own story. So, he would produce a great film from my story. Honestly, I would myself love to play the lead character of my story, Ishaan Solanki. I have at times imagined myself as the character and associated him with events which I always wanted to do. Ishita Solanki’s character can be played by a tall actress who would fit her physique and Varun Sharma’s character should be played by Varun Dhawan. He would be perfect for the role, I think.
LiFT: What are your future plans?
Ishaan: I have not yet decided what I would choose as my career but I am willing to do something in the field of science. In regards to my literary works, I will continue writing more novels and also a volume of short detective stories which will be interrelated. I have not chosen my next project among the various ideas I have. It will be either a sequel to ‘A Journey of life and death : The Sojourn through time’ or a new sci-fi thriller.
LiFT: What are your suggestions to the budding writers so that they could improve their writing skills?
Ishaan: I have always believed that to be a nice writer, one has to be a great reader. The more one reads, the better he would be able to write. I’ve always been an ardent fan of thriller and sci-fi novels and that’s why I was able to write a mystery, sci-fi novel of my own. Practising writing is essential for developing one’s skills. Regularly penning down articles on common topics may serve as a positive approach towards skill development. Everyone has their own writing style and one should carry on with that and try to improve their own skills and not copy from other writers’ works.
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