Subhechcha Ganguly 
Pallavi Joshi hails from Delhi, who believes dreams do come true, if you keep moving. She is an Engineer working with Government of India. She has written the book – “Don’t uglies have right to Love?” This book has made a special place in the heart of several readers. Let us know more about the Author in this special Interview section in Interview Times.
Q1) Every author has a beautiful start to their journey. Tell us more about the start of your journey as an author?
Ans : I wrote my first poem when I was in 9th Standard, titled – “A friend is a treasure of life”, then officially I started writing quotes and blogs back in 2017. When Covid hit in 2020 and the lockdown started, I initiated publishing short stories on my blog, then the plot for Don’t uglies have right to love? hit my mind and I started posting chapters on my blog, but later as I lived the story, I realised it is something which needs to be reached to the masses, just a blog wouldn’t do justice to it.
I started working on it as a big project, and it took me 2.5 years, writing a book is a very long journey, emotionally and mentally, as a person you experience different emotions throughout your life and a book is all about writing emotions, like when you don’t feel love at all, in your life and your plot says it is a love story, it becomes a challenging task, but yes, still you have to stand by your plot, your characters beliefs, their needs and it actually takes a lot of hard work.
Q2) How did the idea of “Don’t uglies have right to Love?” come to your mind . Tell us more about the book. Also attach the link for the purchase of your book.
Ans : Initially, a friend gave me the title – Don’t uglies have right to Love? and asked me to do justice to it. I didn’t have a story at that time, but one day I was stuck at the metro and I got my pilot chapter. I knew, how my main characters are going to look and by the time, I finished the story, a lot of life lessons inspired me to bring out what is missing in our lives, why we all are searching for love and are not able to find it easily, while it should be everywhere, for that matter mankind should exist. We all read or hear poems/quotes about 90s love, like that was the era of real love, just want to inspire people to bring it back.
This is a tale of Dhwani, with a tragic heartbreak after 7 years of her love story, who ended up believing relationships and love are all lies and they fly away as soon as reality hits life. Jai, a child of divorced parents, carried the baggage of never having a family. They both met in a loop of love, pain and friendship, how they all co-exist and wash away their scars is what is ahead in the story. This book is dedicated to all, whosoever felt they are not worthy of being loved, even though they are actually the most beautiful people out there with their kind hearts, which makes them just ‘magical’. It is not just a regular, love story.
Here’s link to purchase my book:
Amazon: http://www.amazon.in/dp/9356216460?ref=myi_title_dp
Flipkart: https://www.flipkart.com/don-t-uglies-have-right-love/p/itmf90cda9fd73af
Q3) Several youngsters wants to write their own solo books, but they lack confidence, what would be your advice to them?
Ans : I would just tell them when I got my first copy of the novel, I couldn’t take my eyes off it, and to this date, no matter how many times, I saw the cover and touch its pages, every time my heart skips a beat and it feels surreal that it’s all my hard work, sleepless nights, not giving up attitude has led me to make my dream come true. It is indeed like true love for your passion for writing. Yes, it’s a long journey, and some days are tough as life hits in a different way than you want to put in your story but keep writing, don’t compare your journey with someone else. Sometimes, it becomes just a document on your laptop, but you have to keep going to turn it into your manuscript. The best advice would follow your heart and take reviews from the people, you can rely on to see what lacks in your story and do editing 3-4 times until it makes your heart go high, finally, it is done. Every story is unique in its way, just trust the process.
Q4) From preparing the draft of the book, to selecting the cover page to publishing it , it is a process that requires total scrutiny and involvement . Tell us about your experience and were there any hardships that you faced in the process?
Ans : Drafting the series of events in a book is a well thought process, you need to take care of making the dots meet and it is a very complex task to join everything in a single go, I guess we all authors learn through the journey of writing the book. The main motive was to spread the message – “You are worthy of everything, no matter what”. I put my heart into it so that some broken hearts could heal. I changed the story meanwhile writing it, as some parts were repeated or felt irrelevant while writing which earlier seemed perfect during drafting. Completing your first draft isn’t just enough, you need to find honest reviewers to see your story from the reader’s perspective, and then note down those crucial points, which you might have missed and polish your story. At last, I believe your manuscript requires 4-5 repetitions of editing to sway away final mistakes.
When I felt, I’m ready to get it published, it seemed a larger task than writing a book, finding the right publisher under your budget and requirements is a task, especially when there are lot in the market. But, thankfully your family & friends are always there to support you, so I got in touch with ‘Orangebook publishers’. I always had an image of my cover in my mind and the team brought the same in front of my eyes, as I always wished it to depict a beautiful scene of the novel and it did. A book is like a baby, you send it to school, but you have to keep checking its progress, so it was a hell lot of communication with the publishers to closely see the progress, as a debut author, it was important for me to understand the publishing task.
The biggest challenge, I feel is setting up pricing as it involves a lot of factors and ultimately you want it to be affordable to be accessible by larger masses. Ultimately, you have to figure out ways to get things done with the collaboration of your publishers, to make yourself a published ‘Author’, which is by the way the best feeling in the world, despite thousand hurdles in the way.
Q5) Tell us something about your hobbies. Have you mastered the art of managing your hobbies and your passion by now or you are still finding ways to do it ?
Ans : I’m a hyperactive person, when I’m high on life, I would pick up anything which comes on my way and make it my hobby and do give my 100% of ‘me’ time to it. My passion was writing ever since, I wrote a poem in 9th standard and got appreciation, so I followed my passion, and wrote a novel, yes it took 2.5 years of hardship but the results were worth it. Sometimes, I pick up hoop embroidery, and a canvas to paint it, and recently, I started food vlogging with my friends on my Instagram profile (@pallavi.joshi099) and started performing my poetries at open mics. My most loved hobby is reading, I realised the more you read, the more you become wise to write, It was difficult to manage writing & reading together, but now I have set some major reading goals in 2023. I hope passion and hobby can go hand in hand.
