Writing non fiction. Through fiction.

The idea for my book started as an itch. On stage. An itch that started in early 2018 on a cold winter evening at Jaipur, India. Commonly called the “pink city” due to the liberal use of the color across the majestic architecture that dots its landscape, Jaipur was the venue for an unconference I was attending at that time. 

In line with the unconference theme, there was a session called “Ignite Talks” where presenters would talk through 15 slides, each of which would auto-advance after 15 exact seconds. It’s based on the pecha kucha format of 20 slides x 20 seconds, and if you haven’t seen or done one, I can’t recommend it enough. It does wonders to your speaking muscles and is often a laugh riot for the audience when the narrative and voiceover are inadvertently time-shifted. I’d always wanted to do one.

My talk was on perspective in life and lenses through which one could develop perspective. After my talk, a few people told me they really enjoyed it and that I ought to expand on it - perhaps as a book. I’ll never know if that was honest feedback or a result of the camaraderie running through the unconference and fueled by copious amounts of alcohol. I flattered myself by assuming it was the former.

Over the next two years, I found myself reflecting on my book fairly often. There were scattered notes across moleskine notebooks, Apple notes, voice memos and google docs. Fractured ideas that I expected would become whole someday and in some coalesced form. The book even got a title but more on that later. Over many transcontinental flights (the company I’d founded and ran saw me flying between Asia and the US every 2-3 months), I even went ahead and wrote out a few chapters. This was getting more real with every in-flight meal. 

I believed I could actually become...an author! 

Till earlier this year...

I hadn’t worked on my book for a few months. A combination of circumstances on the work and personal fronts, and of course the coronavirus, saw me flying a lot less and hence my favorite writing habit came to pass. On a warm May morning, I did what many book writing coaches will tell you is a cardinal sin. I read my vastly incomplete work from many months ago.

We are our worst critics. While I liked parts of it, I was mostly unimpressed. I sounded very preachy and if I didn’t know myself better, I sounded like a “know it all”. The book was, at that time and at best, 10% complete. I imagined a book with 10 times the “preachiness” and felt a gag reflex coming. My labor of love felt very unloved.

I still believed in the core tenets of my book. I just wasn’t sure anymore about how to deliver it. I devoured a masterclass by Malcolm Gladwell on non fiction writing. I did this over long hikes. 

After accumulating over 21 miles under my belt (and a few inches off it as a result), I had an epiphany. I needed to write a story. Not stories to illustrate points. The entire book should be a story. A fable. Fiction. Yes, fiction. For my non fiction book. 

As the author Khalid Husseini beautifully puts it, “Stories remain our best way of building empathy.” I recalled some of the most memorable books I’d read and lessons I’d retained came through stories - books like “Jonathan Livingston Seagull” or “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance”. I needed to write me one of those!

There was just one little problem. I’ve never written a book. 

I’d convinced myself I could squeeze a non-fiction book out of me. But fiction? I don’t even read fiction anymore. It felt like I was aiming to write in Armenian - a language I do not know at all.

I discussed this concern (I don’t know fiction)  and aspiration (I want to write fiction - for a non fiction book) with my book coach, Emily. She is a coach at a non fiction book writing school I’ve signed up with. When I signed up, they were very candid about their articulated focus on non fiction book writing, and that while they would try and help, this was relatively unfamiliar territory for them. Emily, very helpfully, told me there was a pattern to this genre, and that I should first try and absorb it. And then, make it my own by weaving it into a tapestry of my imagination.

With a renewed sense of purpose, I bought and devoured a bunch of books I’d read and heard of from years and decades ago. “Who moved my cheese”. “The monk who sold his Ferrari”. “The Go Giver”. The genre was a lot bigger than I’d known. So much wisdom in so many stories. And simple stories, at that.

As I speed read through a bunch of books, a pattern did emerge. And it was confirmed with every book I read:

• There is always a seeker who, not surprisingly, is seeking something. 

• There is a “guru” who helps the seeker out. 

  • In some cases, the guru was, once upon a time, a seeker too. With an existential crisis that she managed to solve. 

• Lather. Rinse. Repeat. 

Oh, and the story was merely a stage for the wisdom to unroll through its tapestry. It could be seagulls in the sky, a father and son on a road trip, an artisan in Babylon, a ride through an amusement park, a series of conversations over meals, or fantastically, a maze with little people, mice and, of course, cheese. 

I might actually be able to do this.

I devoured a masterclass by James Patterson on fiction writing. While I haven’t read any of his books, I figured that with the rate at which he publishes (147 novels, 114 on the New York Times bestseller list), he would know a thing or two about spinning a yarn. Again, I did this masterclass over more long hikes. Over the course of accumulating another 18 miles under my belt (and a few more inches off it), I was slowly forming the scaffolding for a story that could anchor the lessons in my non fiction book. Over time, the characters developed personalities of their own and they’re now friends - in my head. I put these freshly minted thoughts down on paper by way of a narrative outline and after a few iterations, the pieces actually seemed to fit even if it felt like a Jenga game where one piece could send everything toppling down. And then, just before the July 4th weekend, I sent this to Emily for her review.

A few hours before our review call, I had butterflies in my stomach. I’ve felt that sensation before but these were unfamiliar butterflies. They were of the kind I’d last experienced decades ago in college when I’d await my teachers’ feedback. 

My coach was thrilled! She thought we certainly had something here. With a few minor tweaks and fewer tangents and rabbit holes, this could work. She could see a book emerging from here and she encouraged me towards my next milestone.

This is getting more real with every mile. I believe I can actually become...an author!