Nilanjana S Roy: Breaking into the writing game

SPEAKING VOLUMES

No writer, however jaded, forgets certain things. The first piece published in a newspaper, perhaps a humble local journal, with a byline on it.

The first book, smelling of the printer's press, some pages still uncut, as yet untouched by the world's indifference, praise or condemnation. The first time someone comes up at a dinner party and says, "Oh, yes, you're so-and-so, the Writer."

These are the secret weapons in the arsenal of any interviewer, who knows that no matter how awkward, how stilted or taciturn or hostile the author, these questions can draw them out in the same way as ordinary mortals blossom when asked about their first loves.

Sometimes these gifts come in cock-eyed. I wouldn't call myself a writer, my first published piece was in "The Under-Twelves Journal," circulation 14 households and a lifespan of three issues, my first book is an anthology of food writing, hence written by others by definition.

But even these minor bagatelles are enough to let me glimpse the romance of Writing with a capital W, from a distance.

Over the years, the writing profession in India has changed drastically. It was once a gentleman's hobby, then a statesman's, then a semi-respectable if badly paid profession, then (courtesy Salman Rushdie, Vikram Seth and co) a ticket to the big league if you won the right lottery.

And now? It's beginning to emerge from the twin traps of genteel armchair writing and Indian exotica, to attract an entirely new audience.

In just the last year, anyone who's watched Indian publishing might have noticed the beginnings of a network of support. The Sarai Foundation offers a mixed bag of scholarships, some of them offered to writers who need support for their research.

The New India Foundation, backed by Andre Beteille, Nandan Nilekani, Ramachandra Guha and others has instituted awards for non-fiction writing this year. There's an annual award for the best published work of non-fiction on the subject of Independent India.

They also offer five fellowships, worth Rs 50,000 a month over a two-year span to writers working on non-fiction projects. That's a financial anchor that publishing houses in India cannot provide and that writers, especially those facing long months of expensive research, perhaps travel, have not been able to afford. And bookstore chains such as Crossword are contemplating reviving old awards and setting up new fellowships of their own.

Most of what I've listed above benefits either established writers, or writers who have a certain grounding in their professions. What of new, emerging talent? The Outlook-Picador non-fiction contest has managed to maintain quality and a reasonable volume of responses.

It seems to attract both kinds of new writers: those already established in journalism, academia, publishing or the writing world, and those who're writing for the very first time.

The Asian Age has been running a short story competition for several years now, and again, they seem to attract a blend of seasoned writers as well as young, emerging talent.

The options are varied""online, Caferati, a consortium of Bombay-based writers who post their writing, their opinions and their debates online (www.caferati.com), is running a "Got Fiction?" contest. The Little Magazine filled an entire issue with new fiction, some of it startlingly fresh and of an impressively high quality, a few months ago.

If TLM decides to make this an annual affair, it might plug the gaps created by the refusal of Civil Lines, one of the most interesting magazines of new writing out of India I've encountered, to appear more often than once every two or three years.

And Penguin India recently announced a writing competition of its own""they're looking for humour, and if readers make the grade, they're offering a shortcut into the publishing world.

A point of view often expressed is that true writers are born, not made: if someone has the spark, he or she will rise above all obstacles, get published, and eventually, if this is good work, it will find its audience.

This is not incorrect, but it happens a lot less often than you might think. If these foundations, fellowships and awards last the course and become annual fixtures on the calendar, rather than intermittent carrots handed out at random to a bare handful of aspirants, they could help to bring new writing into the spotlight.

A competition's real value isn't always in the cash awards or the trophy; it lies in having stimulated people to dust off the story lying at the bottom of the trunk, to pick up a pen and tell a story they might not have considered telling before, to break through the fear of rejection and the horror of being weighed and found wanting in order to see if perhaps they can make the grade.

As for a well-run and well-thought-out fellowship, it serves the same purpose as a publisher's advance: it buys the writer freedom. Not everyone's going to be able to quit the day job, but some might now be able to dream.

What if you try and you don't make it? If your perfect novel is rejected, if your irresistible short story isn't even a contender, if the excursion into history or travel you've been wanting to write never gets the financial support it needs?

Wonderful""it's one way to find out how much you want to write, how desperately you need to be a writer. Some of the old maxims are true, and one of them is that if you really, really want to write, you'll find a way. It's easier if your path is smoothened, but if you want it badly enough, there'll be a path.

Tailpiece: At a lunch hosted by William Dalrymple in honour of the Rushdies, Salman sahib explained how to put together a great anthology.

He's just contributed The Firebird's Nest to Telling Tales, an anthology compiled by Nadine Gordimer, who intends to donate the proceeds from its sales to the fight against Aids.

Contributors include Arthur Miller, Susan Sontag, Hanif Kureishi, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Margaret Atwood and Jose Saramago, among others. "With that kind of talent," explained Rushdie, "you're going to make absolutely sure that you send in the best short story you can write." Competition works.