Ask the Author: Jay Antani
Answered Questions (6)
Jay Antani
"The Leaving of Things" was inspired by personal experience. It was profound and powerful enough to goad me into writing it all down in fiction form. Fiction, as opposed to non-fiction, was just a freeing way to recapture that experience. I could amplify certain episodes, invent others and, if I wanted, record exactly what happened. It was all up to me, and that was cathartic, liberating and empowering, all at once. I think all stories should do that for the author and, hopefully, for the reader.
Jay Antani
Nothing and everything.
Jay Antani
By the examples set for me by my favorite authors and by my writing teachers. I like reading works by South Asian authors like Jhumpa Lahiri, Chitra Divakaruni, Arvind Adiga and Suketu Mehta along with my writing mentors Janet Fitch and Gina Nahai. They are all inspirational. Simply reading their words energizes the impulse to get on the laptop and try my own hand at literary craftsmanship. My literary heroes are too many to name, but I'll settle for Hemingway for now. That man could write.
Jay Antani
Two new works. One is a prequel/sequel to "The Leaving of Things," which explores Vikram Mistry's enchantment and disenchantment with America--the movies and music he grows to love as 14-year-old and that, as a 30-year-old, he realizes are just fraudulent and empty products. It's also about him learning to fall in love finally with life, to accept his past and, by doing that, accept the love of another person, a woman he never thought he'd fall for, as they travel the world.
The other work is a total departure: a dystopian sci-fi with elements of alien invasion, an adventure quest and time travel. It's been a lot of fun. Been doing a lot of research on multi-dimensions, worm holes and cosmology … even dinosaurs. I'm a nerd that way.
The other work is a total departure: a dystopian sci-fi with elements of alien invasion, an adventure quest and time travel. It's been a lot of fun. Been doing a lot of research on multi-dimensions, worm holes and cosmology … even dinosaurs. I'm a nerd that way.
Jay Antani
The fact that you're aspiring means there's a voice that's craving to be heard. Everyone has that voice within them, eager to be expressed in whatever ways the individual has the talent for. All I can say is: Heed the voice, take workshops, start with the forms you gravitate to, learn others, learn the craft by practice, read works by your favorite writers and be inspired. After all that learning and practice, if the voice still calls, you're probably good to go. Now you just put everything aside and write. Take no prisoners.
Jay Antani
There's a part of me that thinks there's no such thing. Writer's block might only be fear, subconscious or not, on the part of the writer to write what has to be written. The fear is also one of failure since the words, at first pass, might be junk. So the real question is how to overcome that fear-based block and just pour out the words. Again, the writer may come up short or come up with nothing. But the act of writing is an attempt to take stabs at the truth, the writer's own truth. The truth is a precise target and taking aim at it means facing your own demons and being fearless in aiming for that very minute bull's eye. The good thing is that writers can keep taking shots at the truth, that's what re-writes and revisions are anyway, until they feel like they've nailed it.
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