The Tale of "The Tale of the Dark Warrior"

They say some things take time. You can't hurry them up, or stall them. Like Wizards of Middle Earth they arrive precisely when they mean to. The Tale of the Dark Warrior (link takes you to the official FB page), my novella made up of several short stories has taken its time to arrive.

They (those faceless bastards!) also say good things are worth the wait. Whether my work is 'good' or 'worthwhile' or not is no longer for me to say; this I leave to you to decide. Right now I'm just relieved to be able to say - it is done!

The 134 pages/ 31,600 odd words that make up the book have taken me over 13 years to write, rewrite, (oh so many times) abandon, rediscover, fine-tune, get reviews and notes on, and (just about 48 hours ago) finalize and publish. I grew up with this book and it grew in the telling with me. Putting it up for everyone to see feels like the end of a phase of my life.

From the 1st of January 2015, warts and all, it will no longer be mine and will belong to you, dear readers. I can no longer second guess myself. I can no longer break up those long sentences, fix punctuation, elaborate on a plot point, or scythe away the fluff. It is done, but I am not done with it, and perhaps it is not done with me. Not quite; not just yet!

Indulge me then, as I pen down the story behind this little book.

This novella began as an exercise in navel gazing. The first of the constituent short stories (A Question of Choice) that eventually became this book, was an attempt to write a dialogue in the Socratic tradition. I was a naive kid who wanted nothing more than to be acknowledged as a wise man. I thought my idle thoughts on free will and on true love would make a cracking read! For my questioner I chose a character out of myth who (I cannot name him here because, spoilers!) I thought there had an interesting story for me to continue on. Maybe I could make it a series of stories?

When I finished, I was incredibly proud of the piece, and I filed it away with what tens of other 'projects' on my PC. At least six months later - or as much as a year, I forget - I had the opportunity to show it off as some of my best writing to a literary legend who was visiting with my family - Vijay Tendulkar, the playwright and novelist. I had no idea how that childish display was about to change how I wrote.

Vijay Tendulkar, kind mentor

He was very kind to me, and proceeded to subject me to his own version of the Socratic method. He told me the storyteller must know a hundred things about his characters and his setting that haven't made it into a story, as if it were an iceberg, and the written word was merely what surfaced. He asked me questions, prodded me think about why each person was behaving the way they were, and teased out a back-story. He asked me hard questions - What I was trying to say? Was I aping someone else stylistically? He got me to think about whether the story was good enough without ever using quite that turn of phrase.

Excited, I ran back upstairs to my PC, and revised the story - the first of many revisions. I also belted out three other inter-twined stories over the next two, frantic days - "A Curious Tale", "Of Miserable Saviors", and an ultimately abandoned ending called "Beyond Paradise". Mr. Tendulkar carried hard-copies with him when he returned to Mumbai. When he finally did write back with his notes over email, his major critique was the work was too grim, and that I needed to lighten it up a bit. I responded with "A Breezy Encounter"... and that was that for another long time.

I had moved on to writing an exciting screenplay for a proposed movie you see (inspired to use the form after reading James Cameron's spec script for Spider-man, as I recall). Then there was a set of poems I was working on, or a bunch of essays, or maybe I was just whiling away my time in front of the telly. Thankfully I kept coming back to the novella over the next couple of years - somehow compelled to tweak and revise it with no clear goal in mind.

Cover, circa 2002

Sometime in 2003/ 4, I decided I wanted to publish. A dear friend helped design a cover, and I was off to a publishing house in Pune, my father's recommendation letter in hand (he is a published author himself), to pitch it as an anthology of short stories. Being politely but firmly told only established authors get anthologies of their own, I was back out on the street outside the publisher's office in a half hour. My neatly printed stack of A4 papers remained unopened on a desk inside, and I suspect quickly made it into a recycle bin.

I was devastated. I had truly believed all the world was a stage, and that I was a protagonist! This was my time - this was my claim to fame! I could not reconcile myself with being so roundly rebuffed, and so for the next several years, "The Tale of the Dark Warrior" sat gathering virtual dust in an archive folder.

I did keep writing of course; I had started a blog as my primary outlet by this time (the predecessor to this site). I also wrote a whole other zany novella that I dearly love and may work on again sometime. And I kept returning to re-reading, perhaps tweaking "The Tale of the Dark Warrior".

Meanwhile, life happened. I graduated, got a job, moved away from the town I grew up in, moved to another country for a while, got married! The joys and concerns that came with all this meant that I relegated writing, and this first attempted novella, to a cherished but dusty corner of my mind.

I nearly forgot - but thankfully my loved ones didn't! My parents, my sister, and most of all my wife Kirti, all kept up the drumbeat and kept asking when I would return to writing. When would I finish that novella? (They had all read it in some form by now and wanted to see it finished). I can be stubborn as a mule, and I was, for several years, about not having time to write.

It was not until 2013, after six years of at times exasperated, always loving prodding from Kirti, I picked up the novella again, and assented to her idea of self-publishing it as a test balloon. We set a timeline of one to get it out the door. It would be published in 2014, I resolved. We had thought generous at the time (and it was) but I ended up cutting it close anyway!

For the first time in perhaps five or six years then I actually sat down and read the piece; and was aghast! It no longer felt like me. It had stayed static for a number of fast-moving years, but I had moved on to another place. I needed it to say something other than what it said now. Newly determined, I set out to revise the book again, this time questioning everything from the ground up. I didn't hesitate to chuck out large sections, add new ones in, and change others beyond recognition. When I'd finished, the voice of the story felt familiar to me again. It felt like me.

I was ready for second opinions.

Almost exactly a year ago, on 7/ 8 December 2013, I sent out "Advance Reader's Copies" (ARCs) of the book to a selection of friends. These were people who were bibliophiles and knew something of my taste, my voice. The idea then had been to take their (expected to be minimal/ cosmetic) notes, fix them, and publish the book in early 2014. I sent the book out to - oh, about 20 people.

To say I wasn't prepared for what came next is putting it mildly. The notes that came in pointed to blind spots so large, I could steer an Excelsior class star-ship through them!

This was going to take a lot of work - I was grateful for the feedback, but lost about where to begin! I drifted in and out of working on the book this past year. Often I would get distracted.Without more intervention, I'm sure I would've put off updating the book for another few years, because y'know I was busy!

Enter Kirti, my co-conspirator in this book and in life!

She kicked me, and coaxed me, and sat up with me talking about the book late into the night. She spurred me to finish it, regardless of whether I ever published it or not. She kept following up on an abortive idea for a cover image - the lack of one was my last excuse for not publishing. This was a time when she was more invested in the novella than I was! I thought it was fine as it was, about 99% done and unpublished.

After a while I did the smart thing and took her advice (again). I revised parts of the text; I changed the ending to make it clearer, I wrote a whole new story and nested it between the first and the second story in sequence because one of the characters was crying out for more detailed exposition. I made sure my attention did not drift from the consistent leitmotif. I rewrote parts to clarify that this was ultimately a book about justice and redemption. I made more explicit some of the connections to myth.

(As an aside, I have it on good authority that you can read the novella without getting any of the mythological references - it stands well enough on its own. If you do get the references, it will add a new angle to the book for you!).

What came out the other end of that process, is what is now waiting to be launched. Thus far, it has been read by only two people - Kirti and I. To us, it feels like a whole new book. I went looking for the oldest draft that I have for it (found one dated 13 January 2003), and was relieved and amused to see that the intent of the piece remains much the same. It is ultimately a dialogue, wrapped in a complicated story about fate and circumstance, and is about justice and redemption.

Christmas Day 2014, just over 48 hours ago was when the penny finally dropped! Kirti found an image that we worked into the cover that you have before you. We had finished the book! Thanks to the brilliant service that is Kindle Direct Publishing, all it took from there was a bit of tinkering with the blurb, and lo! I get to keep my 2014 resolution to publish this novella.

"Is the book good enough? Should I fiddle with it just a bit more? Is it going to find an audience? Who am I targeting it to? Will people take away from it what I want them to? Will it sell?"

Only now are any of these questions occurring to me. I'm finding out that you can't be an author and not cringe in self-doubt on the eve of publishing as I am now. I feel fantastic anyway - the deed is done; the book is done! I've kept my promise to my girl, and checked the box on the last remaining 2014 resolution. I'm excited that you dear reader, will be able to read it now, at long last.

As for all those questions? Well, them and all the rest that may come, I leave in your hands.

Whether you love it or not, let me know, will you?

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The Tale of the Dark Warrior is available now for pre-order on these Amazon properties, and will release on 1 January 2015; any pre-orders will be auto-delivered to your Kindle/ Android/ iOS/ Windows devices, or can be read on the Kindle Cloud Reader app for Chrome!

The official Facebook Page will have exclusive content including excerpts, more behind the scenes info, videos and more!

Please use the following links to pre-order/ buy:

Amazon US - India - UK - Canada - Australia - Germany
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The book is also listed on Goodreads

Cover image licensed from Dreamstime.com