Through press interviews and Q&As, authors reveal the hard reality that includes long hours of story building and re-editing to compose their own perfected books. However, Amador Valley students Akshita Nagarajan (‘27) and Sanjay Ravishankar (‘25) have achieved this daunting task. by self producing their own books despite the challenges of writing slumps and the weight of a project as big as this.
Dystopia by Akshita Nagarajan
Nagarajan started writing her first book, called Dystopia, during the Covid Pandemic. The book is a fantasy story about a girl named Sadie and her twin brother, who find themselves in a magical world. They are faced with countless challenges and secrets that they must learn to overcome.
“When I started writing Dystopia, I was mostly just bored because it was during COVID. But it soon became an outlet that I could pour my emotions into. To publish it, I had to make an account on Kindle Direct Publishing, and I had to transfer my writing into pages that are publishable. Then you put it in and you make a cupboard; it’s pretty easy from there,” said Nagarajan.
Draagounus Adventurus by Sanjay Ravishankar
Draagounus Adventurus takes place in a fantasy world where a group of children and elders must fight dragons and other creatures who are terrorizing the dimension that they live in to save the world. Every author has their own form of publishing; Ravishankar talks about how easy it was to use Fresh Ink Publishing.
“I used a publishing company called Fresh Ink Publishing. After I wrote my first draft, they were able to revise it and proofread it. Then they took care of the cover design, the fonts, etc. I read through the book one last time, and then we were able to publish it on Amazon and other places,” said Ravishankar.
The Most Important Step
Writing a book takes diligence, hard work, and lots of focus. Although difficult at first, the story building and character formation are the most attractive aspects of forming a story’s foundation. After the first draft comes the tedious and constant revising that must be done.
“I think that revising and editing are essential. I think a lot of times we write something and then we think we’re done. But most authors… will say that their work is never complete. They’re constantly going back and revising and editing and rewriting. I think that’s an essential part of the process that sometimes we overlook. We want to just think, ‘oh, we’re done and then that’s it,” said English Teacher Rebecca Teczon.
