At the beginning of each year, my wife and I go to a bookstore, and use all the book tokens and money we’ve saved up in the previous year and splurge on books. It’s the best way to start a year.

Throughout the year, we pick up many pre-loved books, but those tend to be older books. Pre-Covid, mostly. But that year start splurge is focused on more contemporary books, released in the last year or so, ones we are super curious about. It’s gone on for so long, we’ve had to buy a whole new book shelf. We are not ashamed or shy about this and amassing books at home is a shared passion.

What this allows us to do is read. We both jump from book to book, devouring and trying to get ahead of the to-be-read pile we’ve bought (but failing and enjoying the failure). This means much of our year is spent in moments where we have to pick our next book. And oh, how we delight in it!

Her way is hers and for now I’m only going to stick to the way I’d go about it. This year, I’ve promised myself to read more in the genre of books I write — fantasy, sci fi, speculative. And these are easier reads for me. I blaze through them (at some point this year I read all of Mistborn Era 1).

But how do I decide what I’m going to read next? Here is a breakdown of the process:

Step 1

I take the time. When my current read is coming closer to the end, I browse through our living room. Seeing all the books I’ve read and the new ones that I haven’t. I’ll pull out some of them, read their blurbs. Explore my personal library.

Step 2

I’ll decide where I am in terms of time: are we going on a vacation? Is work hard or too stressful at the moment? What am I writing right now — do I need to read something as research for my current ongoing project? (These usually get pulled out and placed on my work desk — I have a small pile there that I thumb through during the week.)

Step 3

This is the most important: What do I feel like? Do I want to get sucked into an alternate world (I usually do)? Which book have I been really wanting to read?

Step 4

Is it time yet? There are often books that I want to read but I’ve not reached a place in my reading and writing life to read those books yet. Often reading them is a prize I’m withholding from myself until I cross a certain benchmark.

Step 5

I find the right book, brew a cup of coffee, cuddle up and read.

Here is a quick and dirty flow chart I got Claude to make — I’d ideally have made it myself, but I’m sending this to you while I’m on vacation in Newquay and I’m channelling deep beach-vibes laze.

For this vacation, I picked up Solaris by Stainslaw Lem. It’s a thin but dense sci-fi horror and I knew I’d need to be on vacation to dig into it. And I made a good choice!

Next month I’ll probably pick a lighter, longer book, the kinds I can really dive into, sink into like a hot bath. Why? September is a mad, busy month.

Here’s a few things I’m up to next month.

• On the 5th, I’m giving a talk on The Way You Deploy Time Rules in Your Stories at Time And Place by Society of Inkslingers. More here: https://writingtheoccult.carrd.co/

• On the 6th, I’m telling a new true story on the theme of Food live at Elephant Tales.

• On the 8th evening, I’ll be saying bye to my wife who is going on a working trip for two weeks. Which also means, I’ll be doing a two week writing sprint.

• On the 9th, I’ll be at The Moth MainStage. Tickets: https://www.themoth.org/tickets/the-moth-mainstage-in-london

• On the 11th, I’ll be telling my story Bigger on the Inside live at So, This Happened to Me at Omnibus Theatre in Clapham. Tickets: https://www.omnibus-clapham.org/whatson/so%2C-this-is-what-happened

• On the 18th, I have a Story Jam with an author who is working on their memoir. (Do you want to story jam with me? Reach out!)

• On 22nd, I’ll be at True Story Live as one of the ambassadors. Tickets:

  https://truestorylive.eventbrite.com

• On 23rd, I’m running a writing workshop called Beginnings, Belongings and Beyond with WritersHQ. More details: https://writershq.co.uk/whq-event/beginnings-belonging-beyond/

• On 26th (my birthday), I’m running a Your Story Discovery LAB at Enfield Poets Literature Festival at Forty Hall, London. More details: https://www.fortyhallestate.co.uk/whats-on/discover-your-story-workshop-enfield-poets-literary-festival

And all of this isn’t counting all the other networking events, and other random shenanigans I get up to when I’m left to my devices. Like I said, mad busy month.

You’ll hear all about it on 30th September.

Until then,

Keep reading,

Akshay

Let me tell you a quick story:

When I was studying engineering, my father always commented on the fact that I used calculators. He’d be the first person to express his displeasure. I’d seen him calculate huge sums right at his finger tips but I often pulled out a calculator. He kept telling me that I should be able to calculate instantly in my head but as any rebellious teenager I scoffed at him saying why do I need to when the calculator can just do it? I thought he was just being old school.

Last year, I was at the counter paying for groceries with my father behind me. I handed the teller a £50 note and before they could even punch it into their console, my father told both of us the exact change. He’s nearing 70 now and his brain works faster than us physically having to input anything.

The parallel struck me then, how using AI has slowed down our language skills. As any curious person, I’ve used it, experimented with it. And the outputs, while they seem legitimate, on closer examinations fall apart. There is no special sauce, no clean human inventiveness and a very curtailed personality. Meh. (This particular Meh would never be added by an AI). Also, AI often feels slower. I’ve been studying writing for over 15 years now and my brain processes words, structure and meaning far faster than writing down a prompt and waiting for an output. And then fixing it. Instead, I’ve simply stopped using AI.

Instead, I open a blank page and start writing. It’s way easier (and honestly I quite enjoy the process).

One of the biggest reasons I despise using AI for any form of creative writing is that crafting sentences has never been about the output. It’s about learning what you’re writing from your own truth, your perspective, allowing your brain to make the connections only it can make and eventually sharing it with the world. It’s a process of learning to see the world critically, refracted through your own lens of biases and being, bending it all to your creativity.

Using a AI prompt takes all of that away. Even if you use it to generate just a first draft and edit it later.

Almost at the risk of sounding like my father, I’m going to say it: If you’re thinking about using AI to craft stories, maybe you should pause. Try a blank page. Fail. Learn from your failure and try again. You don’t want to be dependent on a machine. In the long term, it’s not worth it.

I now understand what my father was trying to teach me. What he can do with numbers, I do with language. And do it all within the sanctity of my brain.

Though when it comes to numbers, I still need to reach for a calculator.

Did you hear about the AI companies butchering old books so they can train their AI models on it? Read more here.

Until next month,

Write yourself,

Akshay

For the first time since I started my newsletter, I failed to send one on time. Every 30th, in your inbox. That was my promise. And I absolutely failed.

I’m not going to make excuses. Yes, I had deadlines, submissions and various other things. Life, as always, took over in ways that were out of my control. But I should have prioritised my newsletter, I should have planned for this eventuality. Why do I leave things for the last minute?

But this isn’t mere procrastination. It’s deeper than that. This is the first time in what feels like forever that I don’t want to write. No, that’s not right. Scratch that. I do want to write. I still have that urge. It’s the reason you’re reading this now. But what I’m feeling is dead-bone weariness.

If you’ve been following along, I’ve been querying agents for the last three months, hoping to get my book published. I’ve read my book — multiple times. It’s not without its flaws but it’s fairly good. Dare I say amazing? Don’t believe me — it was longlisted for the Faber Action! prize. So somebody other than me thought it was great. And the early readers all agree they enjoyed it. But the market is saturated. If I go by the stats, an agent signs on 1 query in 1000 submission, if at that.1 Those are mad odds.

I knew being a writer would be a challenge but this is on a different level. While I’ve been querying my book, the rejections continue to pour in. This is nothing new, it’s the nature of the game. I had made myself quite immune to rejections long ago.

But this feels different. I’ve spent better part of my life learning how to write, improving my craft. I’ve poured myself into my work in a way that borders on dangerous. But that’s the only way I know how to do a thing you love, you do it damn well. And my book — it’s the distillation of it all. It’s not just that one book, but everything I’ve done in my entire life as a writer until now, all standing behind it. And each rejections feels like a rejection to not only to my query but everything I’ve done until now.

I know it’s not true, but that’s just how it feels. And it’s gotten so bad I want to stop. Not because I don’t believe in my work, but to protect myself. Staying silent, not doing the thing is the safest bet, right?

I recently joined a WhatsApp group by called Brave People Club. In there, regular people are sharing quiet stories about moments they’ve been brave. When they’ve gone through something hard and how they have persevered.

It arrived at the just the right moment — like so many things do in life. I needed those stories if only to hold myself a little firmer and to know that this journey that I am on may require more perseverance from me. And if they could be brave in their own way, so can I.

A part of me, the one that wants to shut down and not do or say anything didn’t want to send this newsletter, not today. Just go by like an empty blip no one would miss.

But I’d be betraying myself and every one of my followers if this didn’t arrive in their inbox. It’s a day late but it’s here. I’m here and I’m still querying.

And I don’t plan on stopping anytime soon.

Until next month,

(Perhaps I should say end of this one)

Akshay

Part 1 - The Successful Failure

The verb form of the word essay means to attempt, to try something, to give it a go. I absolutely love this. You can essay an essay, and that takes a lot of the pressure off.

I first fell in love with the essay form when I was studying my MA in Creative Writing. I knew and loved essays before but I didn’t have a working understanding of what an essay can entail. After studying modules like Writing the Self and Creative Non-Fiction, all of it combined with my past experience of telling true stories on stage at Tall Tales, I found a little home in narrative non-fiction. Essays about the self, for the self, by the self. I’ve been delighting in them ever since.

The essays I’d written during the MA are both published and the second one On Time went on to be published in print as well. It’s in the Tamarind Literary Magazine Issue 7. But that essay had a life beyond just being printed — for one thing, it broke my mind to write it and taught me a lot about essay structure. And second, it became the basis of my pitch for telling my first true story in London with The Story Collider.

My idea was simple (and lazy). I wanted to “adapt” the essay into a true story that can be spoken aloud. The essay was around 5000 words and my limit was about 1200-1500 words for a story told on stage. I needed to lose a lot of words but stay true to the essay.

But my idea was flawed.

The essay allowed for meandering, which was the “flowy” part of the essay, things it needed to touch on so it could return back to main story spine and add a layer of understanding or meaning to it. But if I stripped out all those flowy-ness, all I was left with was a spine with no body. This couldn’t stand as a story. It wasn’t working.

So instead, I wrote a new story, based on the ideas imbedded in that essay but a whole new story that stands on its own. Once I had that ready(-ish), I read both the pieces one after the other and the oral story read like a complete separate piece than the original essay. It had similarities, idea crossovers, but the essay itself was a different writing piece than the true story.

I’d failed at adapting the essay but I had succeeded in writing a brand new story. Was that a win? I’ll let you decide.

But this idea of adapting a story from the written page to one worthy of the stage didn’t leave me.

Part 2: Updating an Old Story

There is a story I’ve told live called Mama’s Boy. It’s almost an ode to my sister with bits and bobs about our respective relationship with our mom. I’d written this in 2019, and ever since then, I’ve grown up, changed quite a lot and the story doesn’t fully hold true anymore. Not entirely. And I wanted to update it with all my recent advancements of self.

The Moth StorySLAM in May had the theme “I Got it from my Mama.” This story with tweaks could so work, right?

When I started working on it, I figured maybe I can give it a restructure as well. Show off some of the MA level skills! So I started with fresh page keeping Mama’s Boy in the back of my mind. But the thing with keeping things in the back of your mind is that they become seeds to things that bloom in different shapes. What erupted from my fingers wasn’t an updated version of Mama’s Boy but a brand new story altogether. I call it Poha, and it’s a love letter to my mom who kept me so well fed through most of my life.

Completely different story, though. I keep failing at re-writing things. Though I had a newer piece, what I was attempting to do wasn’t working. But I still wanted to adapt from one form to the other. They are both narrative non-fiction, they are both telling a story of true things — why isn’t it working?

Part 3: Alchemy

I’d failed twice in what I’d set out to do, irrespective of the results. But third time’s the charm.

After telling the story live on stage at The Moth in May, I got some immediate feedback from the audience. It’s what I love about true stories told live, the immediacy of reaction. Also, you get instant feedback on sentence level stuff, things that work, that don’t. You can see it in the audience’s eyes if they are still with you or if your story isn’t as good to hold their attention. Where are they drifting off? Does some bit need to be infused with more energy? Some questions? Dig deeper inside? All of this, right there, in the moment. For any writer writing stories, fiction or non-fiction, this becomes such a crucial ingredient in their writing process.

It’s one of the reasons why I am constantly getting up on stages to share my true stories.

But that’s not the point. The responses I received after the show were quite telling. “Poha” relied on a structure I’d used before in Engineering Myself — the first essay I’d written during the MA which falls in the realm of autofiction. The story is set in the “narrative now” in present tense which allows the author to go back in time during various moments to present the backstory which influences the understanding and importance of the events in the narrative now. It is as simple and as complicated as it sounds, more so when you have to remember it all and tell it live on stage.

People really thought the story was sweet and the structure was quite intriguing and engaging, not many people are able to pull off such structures on stage. But that structure was also hard to follow when told live, the constant mental switch while listening — my telling that night wasn’t perfect, but it kept me thinking…

And bam! My brain went into overdrive. I know the structure works! Now I know that the essence of the story works too. So, I used the same structure as a blueprint to start writing another essay: Poha, but expanded. The true story I told live is somewhere around 1000 words fitting a 6 minute narration. But the essay has more space to explore bits and pieces I never could fit into the original telling. A little more backstory, a little more colour. I now have the first draft of that essay that I’m hoping to edit very soon; and hopefully it’ll be published soon too.

But what I’m more pleased with is that I’d finally adapted a true story into an essay. One form to another. Alchemy! And through this entire process of trial and error, I learnt a few things about true stories told on stages:

1. True stories told on stage are more to the point, capturing the true essence of a larger story.

2. True stories on stage are sharper — because you’re telling the story on stage, it’s important to keep the audience engaged throughout.

3. The spoken voice relies less on structure and needs to be more conversational.

Not many storytellers on stage play with too much structure because it’s hard to keep in mind. I stumbled through my own telling (something I’m working on) because it was hard to keep the story and the structure memorised. But that is my next experiment: how far can I push the true story structure so it works for both the teller and the listener?

I’ll report back with what I discover.

Akshay’s Updates

While I’ve been spending a lot of time learning and unlearning things about true stories on stages and the page, I have also been querying agents for my fiction novel. I’m deep in the query trenches and I’m keeping myself afloat. But this is hard, and I have major respect for any author who makes it through this moat. Writing a book feels like a piece of cake compared to this. I’d happily write another.

Anyway, I am also running two Your Story LABs in the UK. I’m so excited for them.

1. On 2nd June — About Me: A Story Discovery LAB. This is a single session LAB focused on discovering your story. More here.

2. My 5-week full LAB programme starts on 18th June till 16th July. I have so much fun stuff planned for this — it’ll be super fun. See more here.

Until next month,

Akshay

When did you last re-read a book? Or re-watch a TV show or a movie you enjoyed? Not for the sake of nostalgia but to seriously engage with it again. With fresher eyes.

Back when I was a kid (and someway as teenager), I boasted about how I’d read all Harry Potter books almost 124 times, in series. I was obsessed and I sat down each time drawing lines, connecting plot points, watching the author lay down seeds in earlier books that grew into something more much later. I’d done similar reading (and re-reading) marathons with other books like the Inheritance Cycle, The Kingkiller Chronicles, Dragon Rider and of course, tons of Goosebumps.

But as I grew older and the internet became much more valid part of my life, I started to stop re-visiting things I’d loved. You read one book, you move to the next. The content factory that the streaming services are have made it feel like if you’re not watching it all, you’ll be left behind. And not to mention all the growing piles of books in my possession. I want to read a lot more. But am I reading deeper?

In December 2025, I spent five weeks in India — not by choice but due to a family emergency (I’m not going into that). I knew the only way I’d survive it is if I have something to really obsess over, something really far removed from my reality. And nothing better than escapist stories. So I started re-watching Dark on Netflix. I’d been meaning to return to the show, revisit some of the ideas, study the story in a way I couldn’t when I’d first seen it. The first time was in bits in parts: waiting for years for the next season, forgetting what happened in the in-between and bingeing it in a way that was hungry for story not nuance.

But this time was a slower watch. I could take a break between episodes to really soak it in, revisit lines and moments, really soak in the story without the rush of wanting t know what happens next — because I already knew how it ended, the twists and turns were not important anymore. But what was important were the seeds that the writers had sown, the way the story was woven, the subtler moments that amounted to so much of the emotional backbone of that epic three seasons.

It also gave me deep insight into my own stories — how what I’ve seen in Dark has trickled into my subconscious and framed and reframed much of the fiction I write. I’m reminded of the quote by Jorge Luis Borges

I am not sure that I exist, actually. I am all the writers that I have read, all the people that I have met, all the women that I have loved; all the cities I have visited.

I had a similar reaction when I’d rewatched Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood in 2020. At various points of my life, I’ve returned to this anime, read the manga and consumed in a variety of ways. But when I rewatched it in 2020, almost 10 since I’d seen it last, I was well into my writer era and I realised how much it has influenced my storytelling: how those characters show up in my stories, similar relationships, small touches of homages I leave behind that I’m not even actively doing. But it’s all there.

Stories influence stories. Returning to the stories we consumed before, rewatching, relearning from them with fresher eyes allows you to study them and their effects on you. They still have so much to teach you.

I’m attempting to read or watch at least two things I’ve consumed in my youth as a means to study them again. What attracted me to them in the first place? What kept them going? And how much do I recall?

I’m currently rewatching the show Weeds by Jenji Kohan and it’s been such a shocker to see a lot of my female characters are shaped after Nancy, the lead in Weeds. She left an impression on me when I was young and now, she comes out in so many of the female characters in my book. It’s helping me learn more and write better, write stronger.

What would you like to re-consume?

AG Updates

1. I’m currently in the process of pitching my debut book and I’ve been entering competitions as well. Earlier this month I got a surprise sitting in my email, the early chapters of my novel were LONGLISTED for the Faber Action! Prize 2026. I’m still reeling from it but I’m also quite delighted. Onward to the next!

2. After a successful run of Your Story LABs in India, I have more upcoming in May. The big LAB starts on 21 May and I have a couple of discovery LABs before. See here for more.

Until next month,

Akshay

I know the answer to this question. But in the moment, it took me by surprise. A talking shotgun in the hands of a young girl in a world full of zombies — isn’t that enough?

Nope.

Every story is driven forward by many things but there is only a single engine. Desire. Want. Goal. Ambition. Many words but they all lead to one thing — momentum.

What takes a story forward? What drives it to the end? And underneath all these questions is the bigger question sitting, feeding the engine. Why are they doing it? To what end?

Without desire the world is static, your characters are static, living in passivity. There is space for a story to have a passive character who becomes active when the situation demands it, but that too is comes in a moment their desire is activated.

• In Lord of the Rings, Frodo’s goal is to throw the ring into the fires of Mount Doom. But underneath that goal is a desire to save the shire — his friends, his family — from the destructive force of Mordor.

• In video game Mario, the titular character desires to save the princess because love.

• In Avengers, Thanos seeing the limited resources desires to bring balance to the world via an amoral cleansing.

Desire moves a character forward which in turn moves a story forward.

As a regular in the personal storytelling circuits in India and London, I often meet people who tell me they don’t have a story.

When I was running Tall Tales, our tag line was “Everyone has at least one great story.” Over time, I’ve heard various iterations of this, “Everyone has a story” “Everyone is a storyteller” “Your story matters,” etc.

But not everyone tells a story. I’ve taken writer friends to The Moth StroySLAMS where people are sharing stories on stage, and I see them say this is not for me. I can’t go up and tell my story. I don’t even have one. I’ve asked so many people if they’d be keen to tell a story, regulars at the shows, folks who love listening to stories — maybe, perhaps they’d have thought of telling a story. Once, maybe, right?

Nope.

But I desire to change this. This is the beginning of my story. And perhaps, even yours.

Yesterday, I concluded my Your Story LAB spanning five Sundays in March, alongside a leading a couple of Story Discovery LABs in Mumbai and Delhi while I travelling in India. All of it was focused on true personal stories.

I’ve witnessed people who were unsure of themselves, didn’t know what their story was, or came in with the idea that they don’t want to share anything leave with a story murmuring in their brain. Their story.

I’ve seen the fire that sharing one story can start, how it influences people. When everyone starts sharing, telling, revealing their inner selves, humanity shinning bright behind those words dipped in courage and vulnerability, for the first time in this darkest timeline that we are living in I’ve seen a measure of hope.

So, that’s my story churning on the engine of my desire. Hope you stick and follow along. I’m sure to make it a fun one.

Until Next Month,

What’s Your Story?

Akshay

I’d written an essay called “On Time” that’s published in Tamarind Literary Magazine Issue 7. That essay sounds most like me, even includes some lunatic musings on time that if any one knows me well can easily identify as my voice. Yet that essay did not just originate from me.

I was living in my future sister-in-law’s house at that time and one of the books in their massive library that caught my attention was 7 Brief Lessons in Physics by Carlo Roveli. I poured over that booked, delighting in all the abstractions and realities it melded together. In the MA module on Creative Non-Fiction, my professor Dr Richard Hamblyn created massive space for us students to explore anything that caught our fancy. Add a dash of mind altering substance my friend procured for me and the essay started to form.

But it was my wife (rather, girlfriend back then) who added the chemical X that helped me write that essay: she cribbed about how I portrayed her in my early drafts, almost like I didn’t love her enough. Offended, I rewrote the whole essay to show her how much I did.

If all of these things hadn’t come into play, I doubt I’d have written that essay.

Art is a strange alchemy. It’s almost impossible to have an ingredient list in place because you never know what will affect you. And how. But that’s also its best aspect— because the ingredients that go into a piece are you, your point of view, the place you are in life and the amount of space others have created (or taken away) to create.

So much of writing is just you grappling with the page and so much of writing is you just living a life and allowing all those experiences to refract and reflect in your words. Without an external community, a writer has nothing worth writing. Even fiction, the mirror to all realities.

I quite pride myself on living on an island, an island of being, just me. That’s where I send you these missives from. But maybe I should get off this island and join the real continent. Or perhaps, I should allow others onto this island of mine. In limited to little spurts of time, of course.

Stay connected,

Until next month,

Akshay

Akshay’s Updates

🙌 I finished writing a book. My manuscript is ready and I’m out in the world pitching it. Pray for me (and if you know a literary agent who’d be keen on an action adventure fantasy novel for adults, hook me up).

✈️ I’m visiting India right now and I’m running Your Story LABs across the country. I held one sold out Mini LAB in Mumbai, and I have another one in Delhi on 7 March. See more here.

🧪 I’m also running the full version of the LAB that spans 5 weeks (every Sunday) through March. It’s online and if you’re keen on discovering and developing your personal story, this is the place you need to be. There are still a couple of spots open. See more here.

Word to hold onto

Pronoia (n.): the belief that the universe is conspiring to support you.

It’s been a minute since I’ve graced your inbox.

I should start by writing happy new year but after 30 days is it still new? And the bigger question: is it still happy?

I must apologise for the break from last December. Life got a little too chaotic and I needed time to focus and hone in on what I want to do. Which hasn’t changed — the thing I want to do most of all is write.

Writing to you though, writing to anyone had to take a backseat as I had to write to myself. I got lost in the island of the self. And I used that to relook at myself and find out who I am.

I am still a work in progress.

But I’ve found enough nuggets to keep plugging away at my keyboard. To write. And to write to you, again. Thank you for being here. It means more to me than I express.

In 2024, I interviewed Christopher Paolini. He’s the author of Eragon and the Inheritance Cycle. His books urged me to be a writer so you can only imagine how grand I felt to get a chance to talk to him. Out of all the things we spoke about (including discussing Bollywood movies) one thing continues to stay with me is the Intentionality behind his written work.

AG: Has your writing process evolved because of how well received Inheritance is or do you still stick to the same bones?

CP: Well, it become more structured. The way I approach each story is a lot more organised and I try to be a lot more organised with my thoughts, my intentions. I suppose that’s a good word. Intention. There’s a lot more intentionality behind everything I do because this is my life. This is my career and that’s important to me and I want to write good books. So you’re never gonna go wrong by putting more thought into a book.

You can read the whole Interview here.

What is intentionality?

Conceptions formed by directing a mind toward an object.

I have, for the most part, always written without a plan. Without an end goal. I’m writing to please myself, telling myself the story first. If I know the ending, it becomes very difficult for me to keep going. While working toward that end, I feel like I’m the reader who doesn’t know what will happen. I can only guess. And it’s this sense of suspense that I hope my readers will have too as they read my work.

If I already know the ending, what’s the point of reaching it?

But not having a plan makes it difficult to know when a project is complete. Is it really? It also makes making changes a real task because you can pivot half way through and suddenly, you have to go back and fix things, add the seeds you’re blooming now. It’s quite a laborious task. And takes the biggest writing resources: time.

It’s one of the reasons I never begrudge writers who are haven’t completed their book series while readers wait patiently for them to write their book. It’s not easy.

While I enjoy this state of discovery, life cannot be lived like this. There has to be an intention behind the larger scheme-ness of it all.

I rarely, if ever, set a New Year’s resolution but this year I’m setting an intention: To be more intentional for every project I take on. For all the words I write (aside from my fiction). Ask, how does it serve me and my aspirations?

Maybe, being intentional may not suit me at all. And to escape its wicked web, I’ll dive deeper into writing fiction where I can be less intentional and see where it all goes. And end up writing a lot more.

Maybe, that is my intention after all.

Akshay’s Updates:

• I got a chance to chat with Hannah Kaner (Author of the Fallen Gods Trilogy) this January. It was quite delightful and her interview is coming soon.

• If you aren’t yet, keep an eye on my Instagram. I’m at @akshaygajria. I’ll be making some fun new announcements in the (very) near future.

• I’m performing my story “Don’t Panic!” at the Omnibus Theatre at Clapham on 6th February. Tickets and details are here.

• I’m also producing the valentine special The Moth StorySLAM on 9th February with the theme “Love Hurts.” It’s going to be mad fun. Very few tickets are left. Get them here.

  ---

Until next month,

Keep your intentions sharp,

Akshay

Life is a whirlwind lately as I send this letter to you sitting in my teenage bedroom in Mumbai under my parent’s roof. I haven’t been kicked out of my life in London, don’t worry, but I have to be in Mumbai to help the family. I wasn’t expecting or planning it but life had other plans.

But this change in city, in locales, in continents has been quite drastic and it’s left me a little turned around. Not in a bad way but in an unexpected way. I’ve also suddenly found a little nugget of time and space for myself to really pause — who knew Mumbai of all places will help me pause?

So I’m going to lean into it. As the year nears its close, I’m pausing my newsletter. Basically, what this means is that I won’t send one out in December, collect all my juices from brain wrangling I’ll end up doing in this paused period and return with a lot more fun and energy in 2026.

That’s the plan anyway.

Until then,

Clean those nibs,

Akshay

PS: Oh, and as a quick cheeky update: one of my live stories is up on the Spark True Stories Live Podcast. You should check it out, it’s a fun one!

Fast forward past an MA to April 2024: I sit applying for jobs, getting butt loads of rejections. While procrastinating, I scrolled to post from the MothInLondon’s Instagram handle — volunteers wanted for tonight’s show. I’d always been meaning to go but I hadn’t. The MA had taken over my life. But with no job and only rejections to show, I email the producer and go volunteer. And I get to watch the show for free too! Win-win, right?

The other volunteers are sweet and encourage me to tell a story when I tell them I how I used to love telling stories on stage with Tall Tales back in India. The producer Charlie invites me to add my name to the hat. So I do. I sit reading an old story of mine. Practicing it in my head. I’d never told a story without my notes. Selected by the luck of the hat as the final storyteller in the first half, I go up on stage and tell a story and Ben Shot Me.

I don’t win that night. Though, the story I tell, Reject is just the one I needed to hear myself. On stage I feel at home. I don’t lose that night.

I’m at every Moth StorySLAM after, volunteering, telling stories if the hat decides to pick me.

In January 2025, I wake up in the new year to an email from the Moth team in New York that that particular story from that night is picked for the Moth Radio Hour. It’ll air sometime in the year. It decides to arrive in June. You can listen to it here.

Also, in that very June the producer I’d met at that first show is moving countries and the spot opens up. Encouraged by the other producers, I apply. It felt like all my life I’d be prepping for just this role. And I get it!

The last four months, I’ve spent learning the ropes and shadow producing the shows to finally produce a solo one last week. All my years of putting together Tall Tales shows in Mumbai have come around to me putting a Moth StorySLAM in London. There is poetry here, a circular narrative that I’m constantly chasing where life comes around in full circle and when I do return to that starting point, its me, bigger, better and so much more.

This circular narrative is quite common when it comes to Indian storytelling culture. While most are familiar with the hero’s journey — the framework for storytelling which focuses on a point A to point B paths — Indian storytelling culture is usually circular where the characters must return to point zero and learn to look at it from a new light. It fuels most of our beliefs like karma and rebirth — circular structures derived from the same storytelling framework.

While I absolutely love the hero’s journey —- and employ it often — it is a western philosophy for storytelling. A part of me, the most intrinsic part that dictates via instinct on the matters of living, is very much rooted in India.

My next dream is to tell a story on the Moth MainStage, so when a youngling from a different country walks into London and attends that show, they too can dream of telling a story up there on that stage. One day, soon.

Updates:

1. In October, I was at two open mics sharing a brand new story. It’s called The Universe’s Masterplan and it’s a fun little story. I can’t wait to tell it again. If things work as planned, it might be on a podcast soon ;)

2. I will be telling a new story at True Story London’s show on 17th November, alongside a MEGA lineup of storytellers. If you’re in London, don’t miss this. I promise you, the True Story London live shows have the warmest audience. You can get tickets here.

   

Over my 34 years of living, I’ve dropped many people off. To taxi stands, to the train stations, to airports. Each time I reach the port of departure, my emotions bubble up to the brim where I don’t want the journey to end. But it does for me and they go on ahead while I live with the feeling of being left behind. I’m happy for them, but it reminds me of my own need to wander, to disappear for a little bit and what is travelling if not disappearing from your everyday life?

While returning home that day, I am 5 stations away from my home when I started to feel it. This sense of missing, this longing. Had I made the right decision by staying back? Missing her and my self-doubts meld inside me like a little emotional turmoil and I almost break into tears.

I’d chosen to stay while Namrata visited India. Her work needed her there and mine needed me to stay. Practically, it made complete sense. Emotionally, it made zero sense. Neither of us wanted to part, either.

In the months leading up to her going, I imagined these weeks as a solo writers retreat, like the ones I used to have back when I lived in India. I’d write. I’d do my work. I’d accomplish everything I wanted to.

I am out of Zone One hurtling through Zone Two and toward Three. I’m specifying this detail as after Zone One in the underground tube you loose network. I’d stopped reading my book a while ago as I am not able to focus with the rising emotions. Had I made the right choice? Should I have gone with her? Will I go mad all alone? Or will I relish it?

The tube, thankfully, is relatively empty. An older lady opposite me is steadily scribbling away into her notebook. I smile at that. She writes in the tiniest of diaries with the tiniest of pencils. It is quite cute. A moment later, a kid runs past me chasing something. She stops at the central handrail and tries to cup a dragonfly into her little hands. She chases the dragonfly deeper into the compartment and finally, to the applause of everyone, she catches it. Or rather it sits proudly on her finger and she carries it back to her mom who clicks a picture.

A whirlwind of emotions run through me again: that’s what I long for, this absolute childlike freedom to chase wonder. In the compartment full of about 25 people, the little girl remains the only one who spotted the dragonfly and chased after it.

I smile and meet the older lady’s gaze who returns my smile. Most of the tube returns to their music/TV shows/books but the lady and I carry our faint smiles, acknowledging between us how wonderful a moment this is for the little girl and how lucky we are to witness it.

The moment slowly fades and I returned to my internal monologue of feeling my feelings of missing and longing and doubting myself again. Despite my earphones playing soft music, I hear a noise outside and it is the older lady gesturing for my attention. Once I look up, the lady smiles and points at my back pack. It sits between my legs on the floor and the dragonfly stares up at me.

The little girl arrives, kneeling next to my bag but before she tries to hold the dragonfly again, I lock eyes with the dragonfly. It tells me that the world is full of wonder and sometimes all you have to do is go out and look. And often enough, if you have faith, the wonder will come to you. Like I did, amongst all the people here, I choose you.

Of course, the dragonfly did not speak. But my brain has a way of giving voice to the voiceless. And in that wonderfilled moment, I knew I made the right choice.

Delivering its message, the dragonfly flies off. The girl chases after it, catching it again. She gets off with her mother at the same stop as me, the dragonfly perched carefully on her finger. She rides the escalator, taking it out of the underground tube line and out into the world alongside her.

And I do the same with that memory. Every time over the last few days I’ve wonder whether I made the right choice, I remember the dragonfly.

Some of the Wonder I Found

1. Hampstead Heath

On Friday, 26th, I got lost within the wilderness of Hamstead Heath. I absolutely love getting lost and I met some amazing trees and sights that will someday show up in my fiction, specifically that Hollow Tree.

2. Cooking a Feast

I moved to London on 20 September 2022, knowing only how boil and fry eggs. Three years later, I can prepare a whole feast to feed a family of 6. My ability to do so doesn’t wow me as much as my love for that ability. I never needed to cook in my old life in Mumbai and now not only can I but I love spending that dedicated time in the kitchen, finding new recipes and making them. Often times they are yum and I keep surprising myself with it. It’s like I’ve learnt a new language to express myself in.

I made a feast for my family here in London on my birthday just to mark my own progress in life. No pictures for this as my plating isn’t aesthetic. (Yet!)

3. The Moth Show

I attended the best Moth MainStage I’ve seen in the last few years. Great stories but each storyteller brought their A game. I’ve been inspired and my need to get up on that stage grows stronger with each show I attend. This particular one is going to remain in my memory for a long long while. It’s left a seed.

4. Stories

I’m in the midst of developing two new true stories for the stage. They both feel connected in weird ways and perhaps there is space for something much larger here. We’ll find out. I told one of the stories at a small open mic to test it out recently. And I’ll be doing a lot more tests to keep tweaking it further. It’s a fun little story and I can’t wait to complete it fully.

But the wonder remains in the conversations I have with people after the story is told. For someone who does not enjoy conversing with people, I really treasure these chats.

Until next month,

Hope it’s wonderful,

Akshay

Equipment:

Fountain Pen(s).

Notebook(s).

A digital device capable of intaking and processing words.

Ingredients:

To marinate an idea —

• An ounce of iron clad will

• A bottle of time

• Access to a garden/beach/mountain path

• Access to a well stocked library

• A spare bottle of time

• Chocolates (darker the older you get)

To write the book

• 30ml ink in a bottle — colour can be your choice

• 3x Bottles of time

• Teaspoons of grit

• Copious quantities of tea and coffee

• 3 cups of self-loathing

• 2 cups of confidence

• Half a cup of grammar

• A pinch of an adult refusing to grow up

Instructions:

Marination

1. Take a walk in the nearest garden/beach/mountain path. Take a sip from the bottle of time.

2. Take another walk.

3. Think about how you’ve always wanted to journal.

4. Fill your fountain pen with ink and pull out a new notebook. Write nothing in it. Or write nothing of importance.

5. Stretch your brain to remember your dreams right at the beginning of the day. If you have the privilege of waking up next to your partner, make them your verbal diary.

6. Once you’ve hit upon a string of thought, follow it to the library. Find out more.

7. Read.

8. Take another large swig from the bottle of time.

9. Read some more.

10. Eat a piece of chocolate.

11. Stay in the library reading, emptying the second bottle of time and until you have some form of scribbled notes in your notebook/digital device around the topic you’d started thinking about. If the initial idea seems blurry compared to what you’ve unearthed, you’re marinating it right. Otherwise, keep digging.

12. Once all the time from the bottle is over, you can start with the actual writing. If not, keep that idea in the back of your mind and let it gnaw at you as you take little sips from the bottle. Repeat until empty.

Final fail safe for step 1-10: If all else fails, take a long train/plane (the destination is not important as long as it’s far enough away) with only your notebook, no phone, no music player, no book and allow yourself to be gently pull open the notebook, pick up the fountain pen and pour thoughts and words into the notebook. One of them will turn into an idea worth following.

To write a book

Writing Process

1. Write.

2. Write.

3. Learn the art of making the perfect cup of coffee.

4. Have a piece of chocolate.

5. Write.

6. Write.

7. Pour in half a cup of self loathing.

8. Pour in half a cup of confidence.

9. Allow the two to swirl inside you.

10. Learn to brew the perfect cup of tea.

11. Write.

12. Go for a walk.

13. Write.

14. Swig from the bottle of time.

15. Write.

16. Make notes. Leave little comments for yourself in the draft.

17. Repeat steps 1-16 until you naturally reach a point where the words can read the end.

18. Now take a large swig from the bottle of time and leave the writing alone.

19. Go read a book.

20. Watch a movie.

21. Optional: You can consider marinating another idea for a future book.

22. Take a swig from the bottle of time and read what you’ve written.

23. Pour in one cup of self-loathing.

24. Pour in another cup of confidence and find some treasured sentences you underline and decide to keep going.

Editing process

1. Begin editing process.

2. Clean your house.

3. Clean your room.

4. Clean the desk you have purchased to write on.

5. Google chairs that are better suited to writing on that desk.

6. Remind yourself that all writing is rewriting.

7. Edit.

8. Fold in drops of grammar.

9. Edit.

10. Edit.

11. Edit.

12. Decide everything you’ve written is crap and think about chucking it all in the bin.

13. Edit.

14. Edit.

15. Edit.

16. Edit.

17. Think about how you’ve wasted 4 bottles of time on this and how precious they were and could have been used for anything else, anything at all.

18. Hold yourself in your bed and cry.

19. Remember when as a child you stayed curled in bed reading books and imagining the glorious worlds and different people.

20. Imagine how your book could do the same for a different child.

21. Think about how your book could do the same for your inner child.

22. Remember you never wanting that inner child to grow up. Remember the promise you made to yourself.

23. Crawl back to your book.

24. Edit.

25. Edit.

26. Take that final swig from the bottle of time. Buy more bottles, at whatever cost.

27. Edit.

28. Write.

29. Edit.

30. Write.

31. Edit.

32. Write the words “The End.”

33. Weep in delight.

34. Your book is now complete.

35. Read it again.

36. Make minor changes.

37. Catch that typo.

38. Share it with the world.

This is my recipe for writing a book. Please feel free to make alterations as needed, in quantity and quality. Most ingredients can be swapped out for another, all except the bottles of time. Your quantity may vary from mine.

Go, cook!

Until next month,

Keep swirling,

Akshay

This month started with me working on a new story. No, scratch that. I’d been working on that story for a couple of months in the back of my brain (but does working on a story subconsciously warrant a “I’m working on it” tag? I know my friend Tim will agree but until words are not placed on paper, I struggle to legitimise it). In any case, I really started working on the story once the month began with a deadline for the 9th.

The Moth Story Slam had the theme Dirt scheduled for their 9th July show. My parents were in town and I wanted to share with them what I do here in London. So obviously, on the 8th, I really started writing the story down. My story was loosely about the dirt on my shoes and how it reminded me of my own mortality (it feels like a stretched metaphor but I got it to work somehow, promise). While working on the story though I started to discover this niggling sensation that I’d been having but hadn’t been able to identify — an urgency to hurry.

The more I look back at my life, the more I’m starting to see that pattern. I’m hurrying, consistently. I’m hurrying but it’s getting me nowhere.

Today morning, in the midst of a workout at home, I was breathing hard and my watch told me my heart rate was at 134 bpm.

When your heart is beating fast time tends to move faster as well, your body willing it, pushing time toward a point where your heart will be calm again. During this quick paced heart beats, my thoughts take on a kind of silence that is uncommon when my heart is beating at its routine 68bpm. It’s like all my thoughts are trying to keep pace and they are going so fast, my brain can’t recognise them individually and it turns into a kind of ringing, a background score I can easily ignore.

(Ignoring the voices in my brain is hard if I’m not in any altered state.)

So, there I was, my thoughts taken on a hum in the backdrop of my brain, my heart beating fast while I breathed in and out, in and out, in and out. Between sets, I walked up to the window in my bedroom which was pushed open as far as it could go to keep the house ventilated and cool. My bedroom window opens to the backside of a long rectangular row of suburban houses each one with a mini garden. My window is on the shorter arm of that rectangle and all I get to see are blocks of grass and trees. In that quiet oasis, a butterfly with red wings tinged with blacks fluttered to my window and sat on the glass pane.

It stayed there, unmoving, calm, still. My heart was beating hard, my breath was shallow and quick. My brain was a blur of thoughts. And within that mad rush, the butterfly sat calmly at my window, so removed from this constant hurry my body felt. It sat, surveying the garden, dreaming of all the flowers that it could find, maybe taking rest from a feast. It did not even flutter its wings, just sat there, so still. I’ve never had a butterfly come sit on my hand, I feel I’m not calm enough for it to land. But here was one who sat on my window and though I was right there, breathing hard, chest pounding, my thoughts a humming blur, it didn’t pay me any heed.

And for a moment, a microsecond of a microsecond, I felt its calmness exude out of it to include me. I continued breathing hard but a smile spread across my face. Life lost all sense of urgency. Yes, I had to finish my workout. Yes, I had to get to many places. Yes, I had to start my work day. But for that moment, I sat with the butterfly and watched the garden below my window and wondered of its wonders.

I needed that. If only to remind myself that time is elastic if you can be present.

Until next month,

Stay still,

Akshay

PS: While writing this, I had Radiohead’s album OK Computer playing in the backdrop. The song The Tourist came along and when I reached the end of this draft, I switched focus to the song and I heard Thom York yell, “Idiot, slow down, slow down.” And it all made sense.

I didn’t plan any of this. But often, by not planning you open yourself and allow the universe to fill in.

Have you ever seen a path made by many feet on a grassy patch of land? This path seems like the shortest route between two corners and is not formally a designated route but one created by humans (or animals) who wanted to wander, who did not fit into the established idea of what the formal path should be. Such paths are called desire paths.

City and infrastructure designers often pay special attention to desire paths. These paths are a conversation that the people living and frequenting that area speak through with those paying attention — these paths are the ways the population wants to walk in. These are the paths they desire.

It’s a showing with each step.

Near my new home, there is a canal. I was walking home one day and while the map showed me a direct concretised footpath to walk down, I veered right into the little path called “New River Path”. It wasn’t marked on the map but what I found there was a desire path.

A big sign outside the canal says that no one cleans this place, so don’t leave your litter here. The canal flows steadily. Near the gate a huge seagull (sometimes a swan) sits guarding the gate, often raising their wide wings and taking flight when they spot someone new approaching. Under the trees, the path is entirely shady, in all sense of the word. The path is narrow, allowing only a single file movement. There is something solitary about it yet freeing.

I followed it. The canal wasn’t as clean as it looked at the beginning. On the other bank, rows of small backyards lined that side of the canal with wooden fences. But these fences did not to deter the foxes that watched me pass, their gaze steady, eyeing this new intruder. Not hostile, but curious. Ducks sat swimming in the lake, floating gently, paddling like crazy underneath. When one rustled their feathers, I felt a stab of fear. Would they fly into me? Would they expect me to feed them crumbs like other kind hearted people? Is my heart kind hearted?

The path expands as I near the exit. There is grass for dogs to sprawl in, pets of humans, and kids to run around. A flock of pigeons and ducks swarm near the entrance and my irrational fear of birds rises, my heart is thudding in my chest. But kids, blessed kids, run amuck and scatter the birds and gather them near the bank trying to feed them. I hastily dash out of the path and onto a familiar street, the one next to my house.

Ever since, whenever I head in that direction I’ll take this path by the canal. Fewer people travel across it. Namarta is not too fond of it, but that’s okay. It’s my desire path, and not all desires can be shared.

I feel like much of my life is this, seeking out desire paths. Robert Frost’s Road Less Taken has been a compass while selecting the paths I’ve wound down on but I don’t want to remain one who takes the road less taken.

I want to built a path, desire it enough to make it so.

Akshay’s Updates

June remained topsy-turvey. But four major things happened:

1. My story “Reject” aired across the airwaves on The Moth Hour Radio. You can hear it here.

2. I got part time job as the Swing Regional Producer for The Moth StorySlams in London. Can’t wait to produce shows for The Moth!

3. Sometime during the month, I spoke with Catherine Evans, publisher at large at Inkspot publishing. We discussed what it’s like running a indie publication house and MIR online published that conversation as an interview. Read the interview here.

4. My essay on 5 Magical Activations by Your Fantasy Character is published by Fabled Planet. Read it here.

5. Somewhere in the month, Namrata and I visited Berlin. And we ate such delicious food!

Until next month,

Chart your own course,

Akshay

My life is a firefly, blinking, blinking, blinking, a sun in the sound of the trees, where and when, juxtaposed, like space and time woven into a knit sweater hugging a universe when it is cold. Jellyfishes wriggle, yes, but they crouch and turn and float in the deep recesses of the subconcious, charging ideas electric that etch inside skulls like memory. I wonder as I wander the depths and lengths and heights of a little bowl, holding all that is precious, life and love and hunger, wherein I encounter the storms that rage across my body, my spine, my soul. Who am I really but a firefly, thinking, thinking, thinking, in a taverna of trees, where all the lights go out for a walk, bobbing gently on the waves of the wind.

I wrote the above on a day I wished to take a walk outside amongst the words, in the garden of my mind.

Keep wandering,

Akshay

Updates

May has been long, hot and extremely tiring. But within it all, I achieved something.

1. Namrata and I moved into a new home. If you read my last newsletter, I must tell you that my cooking has not suffered even a bit. Also, the rotis! 🤤

2. Throughout May, I collaborated with a team at True Story London and we led a three week workshop at Chickenshed Theatre working with drama students to help them tell their true personal stories. In the final session they shared some true personal stories from their lives and it was such a privilege and heart warming to see the students and their stories grow within the space of three weeks.

3. I have two character focused writing workshops upcoming:

   1. Funny Hats | Online with Writers’ HQ as part of their Write a Novel Festival | More Here

   2. Backstories & Bad Decisions | In-person at Dugdale Arts Centre, London | More Here

4. One of my true stories I told on stage “Reject” will be featuring in The Moth Radio Hour podcast in June. Keep an eye out on my socials for when. Woop woop! 🙌

5. I’m now a Swing Regional Producer for the Moth StorySlams here in London. It feels like I’ve come home.

Until next month.

Namrata and I are moving into a new house, tomorrow. In our new house, we don't have an induction cooking hob but a gas one. The one where we cook atop a naked flame.

I learnt how to cook — properly cook, as in full three course meals — when I moved to London in 2022. Ever since, I've cooked only on induction hobs and I must say I feel far more comfortable around one. It also helps that they are easier to clean. Before moving to London though, I never could cook. I even joke about in my Tall Tales story Mama's Boy.

I never cooked in India. Staying in my parent’s home, having help easily available, it never mattered. But what really clinched the matter was the story I told myself (and others):

or the extended edition:

Or the remix:

All my life I've been feeding this story to myself and the universe around me, not just believing it to be true but making it so. The more I repeated this story, the truer it got.

Over the last couple of months, I'd been reading the God Killer trilogy by Hannah Kaner. Within those pages, gods exist, and these gods are given shape and form through human need, wants, desires, and the stories they tell. They feed on human belief.

The stories we tell ourselves are similar, they become more and more real, the deeper we believe in them. Repeating a story, often results it becoming a kind of truth you hang around yourself. This thing you tell yourself, it’s what you are.

But in London, learning to cook is a necessity. I started slow and every time I made a meal on the induction hob, following recipes and instructions from the many cooks before me, I delighted in its sweet alchemy. How could mere ingredients turn into this tasty meal? I felt like a magician, creating meals that not only felt satisfyingly warm in the belly but also, delicious on the tongue. (Outrageous, I know!)

Cooking, experimenting with ingredients and spices is now quite normal for me, and I often go on a cooking spree on days I feel like I haven’t accomplished much. Sometimes, feeding yourself and your partner on a bad day is all you need to survive. It puts life into simple perspective.

Now, I don't repeat the story to myself that I can't cook. I can cook and I cook really well too. It's become a source of joy for me and Namrata and I share many evenings cooking up a storm.

The new house though comes with a new hob with a gas connection and flame. I have never used one, and two years ago, making a such big change would have felt drastic. I couldn't cook then, and if you change the instrument, I definitely can't cook. But that's not the story I tell myself.

Namrata worries — and rightfully so — but I believe that my culinary skills have grown and the story I choose to tell myself is that I will adapt to this new device and quickly learn how to use it to the best of my ability. And I have complete faith in the story I tell myself.

I’ll let you know how it goes, next month.

What story are you telling yourself?

See you on the other side,

Akshay

PS: The other story I choose to tell myself is that I can't make rotis, because Namrata makes them so much better and I can't be bothered. On the gas stove, they will be phenomenal. I can't wait! 😝

Sometime last year, I'd read an essay about how non-fiction essays or true stories stop being true as time passes. The person you are who wrote that story changes or the person depicted in that story, the relationships, the thoughts and ideas or dreams showcased in that essay are no longer valid. What happens to such essays and stories? Do they become lesser versions of themselves, time capsules of an older you?

This is something I've been struggling with over the last month. Since December, every month, I've been telling a true story live on stage, may it be in London or Mumbai. Twice, I told a brand new story penned in chronal proximity (aka November 2024). That particular story does not feel untrue. But in other instances, I've pulled from my bag of older stories. Namely, my post pandemic story of going bald. "On a Bad Hair Day."

Given that this story wasn't too old (the story takes place in early 2020), I’d assumed it should be fun to work with again. While telling the story live in London, I made minor changes and tweaks. But for the most part I left it the same.

It worked. The story is beloved by so many people who have come to tell me how seen they feel after hearing it, many who have found nuggets of confidence to go ahead in their lives and so many others who tell me what a great decision going bald was. I agree with all of them, and yet, when I finished telling the story I didn't feel the old satisfaction. Something was missing.

I tell stories on stage for: the conversation, the give and take of energies between a performer and a live audience, the laughter, the silence, the feeling of living a story, transporting everyone in the room to the place in my head, together, showing them what a fool I've been and laughing at the old me, together. It's pure joy.

But in March, this felt slightly diminished.

My wife explained to me that my story required a little more context building. Taking an audience for granted, telling them a story about your life back in India without the context of what Indian society is like does not help them fill in the gaps and understand the depth of my own discomfort, and this in turns leads to a weaker payout at the end. Did that mean the story needed to be edited to work better for this newer set of audiences I find here in London, especially one that may or may not understand the nuances of my Indian heritage?

Yes. If I am going to pull out my old stories from India, I will need to rework the stories.

But there is more to it. These stories were written by a younger me, a younger person but also a younger writer. I am far more confident in my ability to wring words about on a page and while telling the story, the words made me slip into my younger writer self than actually staying true to who I've become.

Which means that I'll have to put in a lot more work to get my stories to a level that brings me satisfaction, that stays true to who I am, now. Which means a lot of re-writing, re-working and re-thinking old truths.

As always, I have my work cut out for me. Why do I keep doing this to myself?

Akshay's Updates:

• This month I gave a lecture at my alma mater on one of my favourite topics. Fantasy Fiction!

• Also, I hosted Tall Tales' first in-person London workshop, and I have another one coming soon. My next workshop will be on crafting true stories and I’m collaborating with True Story London to bring it to writers in London. See more details here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-art-of-true-stories-a-personal-storytelling-workshop-tickets-1285961909689

• Lastly, I told a story with True Story London, an experience that prompted much of the above newsletter.

Until next month,

Keep outgrowing your truths,

Akshay

I’ll let you in on a secret: I’m writing a novel.

But what does “writing a novel” even mean?

Does it mean that I am waking up every morning at 6 am to churn out a fresh batch of 1000-2000 words? Or maybe I’m editing them? Or I’m procrastinating by writing something else entirely? A short story perhaps? Or a newsletter? Or am I working on tightening the synopsis as an exercise? Or I’m dreaming up newer and better ways to write a scene? Or am I listening and re-listening to a song, thinking if I can incorporate the lyrics, the mood, the tune or the rhythm into a paragraph? Or maybe I’m looking up recipes to cook for dinner, thinking if my character would be able to make it or not, and if she’d even like it? Or maybe I’m using the momentum from procrastinating on all the reading I’m supposed to do by actually tweaking parts of my novel and pushing it forward? Or I’m taking long walks in nearby forests calling it research? Or am I actually dreaming about a scene from a completely different story I’m yearning to write and I’m using that as a carrot to get through this one so I can eventually write that?

Or maybe I’m doing them all? So many parts to a single whole.

I’ve ghostwritten a couple of novels and written early drafts of many more. But in all this time, I haven’t figured out what it means to write a novel. A writer once said that you have to write the novel you’re working on and figure out how to write that particular one to the best of your ability. That’s all there is to it.

Updates

• During my brief visit to India, I got a chance to put together a Tall Tales live show where I told my latest true story “Bigger on the Inside.” Such a fun experience.

  

• On March 17, in London, I’ll be telling another true story to a live audience with True Story London. If you’re in the city, consider joining us: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/true-story-live-true-storytelling-show-tickets-1215042497819

• Also, I’ve been re-invited to conduct my Fantasy Fiction 101 course for BA students at my Alma Mater: Birkbeck, University of London. The first class I’d conducted last year was apparently a rousing success and they want me back this year too. I’m so excited to return and share everything I’ve learnt.

Keep writing,

Or whatever you think is writing,

Akshay

You’re reading Missives from an Island a newsletter by Akshay Gajria, a prize-wining writer, storyteller and writing coach. This newsletter is delivered to your inbox on the 30th of every month. You can also find Akshay on Threads, Instagram, and Medium. If you enjoyed reading, consider tipping him by buying a cup of tea (or three) here or buying his ebook. You can discover his work at akshaygajria.com

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Hope you are all having an amazing January, even if it doesn’t seem to end.

At the end of a year, I’m not one to make resolutions. But this time, I allowed the headwinds of the changing year to carry me into making new strides forward. I’ve been writing more—creating, nay, carving time out of my day and life. It’s not easy. I fail often, but more often than my failures, I succeed to sit and write. My novel, which is what I’m working on, is in progress and it’s full and steady steam ahead.

I’m also exercising again. Not as heavy as I could have gone, but easing my body into it, taking my old(er) age into account. When I look in the mirror, I see the semblances of the old young me, all that muscle memory still lingering below the surface.

And I’m hunting for a job. I’m on it! I’m on it like a crack addict on a street corner.

But beyond these outwardly life goals that I’m working toward, there is one thing I’m still unable to incorporate into my life. Something in my bones I know I need but unable to add back into my daily life.

What is it? Awe Walks.

Awe Walks are simple: You take a walk, not to a destination but for the purpose of taking a walk. There is no ulterior motive like losing weight or feeling fit. In an awe walk you meander through lanes and paths you may or may not have passed before and awe at the world. You stop when you need to, you admire the planet, you remember the incredibleness that is your human body, living breathing, all nerves and arteries and muscles and bone, moving in conjunction atop a space rock, that hurtles through a vacuum of space, a space rock that’s created a shield of air we call the atmosphere that cycles through shades of blue and grey and on those occasional moments from red to pink under which thrive other living beings of different shapes and sizes and colours and lives. Awe walks are just like ordinary walks but also not.

You could say reading a book is like taking an awe walk and you wouldn’t be wrong. I recently read Orbital by Samatha Harvey and that is an awe walk like no other. But while I am making more time to read and reading way more, I miss the physicality of an awe walk, of the wander and wonder.

In one of the many newsletters by Toby Litt in December, he shared a list of the things you need to write. The top three are:

1. Time

2. More time

3. Even more time

I manage 1 and 3—those are required for the actual, physical act of writing and editing. But number 2, that’s the tricky one.

More Time to do stuff which doesn’t seem to be writing but which, in the end, turns out to have been writing all along. To the non-writer, this may appear to be sitting in a cafe people-watching or going for a walk around a shopping centre, having a nice long catnap, or listening very closely to a piece of music — but, actually, it is when the writing bit of the brain does its hardest work. Believe me.

—Toby Litt

For me, More Time used to be an awe walk. It could be as simple as wandering through aisles and aisles of the grocery store, wondering the uses and misuses of the various products on display, wondering who buys such things and what would be their use case, what kind of person they would be and what is their story, and suddenly stumble upon a story of an individual who is quite different from you but you share the similarity of frequenting the same grocery store.

Finding More Time than actually living and actually writing is tricky and for the most part, I’ve fought tooth and claw to carve out time to actually get the words down and then some more to get them right. Yet, it’s never enough.

But I’m sneaky. I find More Time when I take extra long bus rides home, take the longer path to my destination, slow down my walk so I don’t match the pace of Londoners going about their day. I slow down, slow down even further than I normally go about my day. It’s not easy, especially when nothing productive comes from it. Yet, the most productive I’ve been are days right after these stolen bubbles of time, unscheduled and open to all the possibilities that they may contain.

My aim, beyond those outwardly goals I’ve set for myself, is to reincorporate awe walks into my life in my quest for More Time. I hope I succeed.

Akshay’s Updates

• My essay On Time is published in Tamarind Literary Magazine Issue 7. And IT’S HERE!

It’s one thing to know that your piece is published and I’ve seen many of my pieces appear on online and on screens. But to see it on paper like this—it’s a different joy. I reread the essay sometime this month and—I’m not even bragging—I thought it was such a great read. The other essays and stories in there are beautiful as well. Maybe you should give it a shot? If you’re in the UK, you can get a physical copy or if you’re outside, get an e-copy. See here: https://tamarindlit.co.uk

• I’m becoming a regular at London’s Moth Story Slams. I’m really hoping to win one of these this year while I make in roads with other true storytelling organisations.

  Unfortunately, in February I won’t be at The Moth Story Slam in London but I MAY be telling a story in Bombay. Keep an eye out! 😉

Akshay’s Recommendations

1. Orbital by Samatha Harvey: Such a good book. A meditation on our planet, our lives and what it all means from point of view of scientists hanging out in the space station, orbiting the earth. I’m so so so glad such a book exists. There is a reason it won the Booker prize.

2. Arcane on Netflix: This is the most expensive animation TV show ever produced and for good reason. The first season of this show remains the best bit of animation I’ve ever seen and season 2 comes very close taking over that top spot. Eye candy with a great story and amazing characters. Must watch!

Until next month,

Cherish all,

Akshay

You’re reading Missives from an Island a newsletter by Akshay Gajria, a prize-wining writer, storyteller and writing coach. This newsletter is delivered to your inbox on the 30th of every month. You can also find Akshay on Threads, Instagram, and Medium. If you enjoyed reading, consider tipping him by buying a cup of tea (or three) here or buying his ebook. You can discover his work at akshaygajria.com

It’s been a glorious year. The white grows like mould in my beard and in these last few days of the year, I feel like I’ve shrugged off an old skin to emerge anew.

It doesn’t feel glorious when you’re swimming through the muck of the present, though. Time feels like a quicksand, easy to get stuck in. Unwilling to move—unable to, often—yet time, inexorably moves forward and you’re sinking, sinking, sinking. When you look back, it doesn’t seem so bad. The brain has its wiring crossed to show you the highlights and nostalgia, that device of revisiting time with a filter to make things look better than they were, always helps. You wade through knee high muck, and maybe in retrospect it was only ankle high. Or maybe, hopefully, you’ve grown larger than what the year could throw at you and time is just a slick ground you have to be careful where to keep your feet but isn’t tough anymore.

For me, this year has been all of that and more. It’s been one the biggest years of my life.

Here is a final list to end things.

Life

Wins

• I GOT MARRIED. Yup, some days, I turn to see my wife’s face and I don’t believe it. How could this human being exist? How did she ever reach a mental place, a decision to spend her life beside mine? I never understand other than in the moments our eyes meet.

• Our wedding is a huge story in itself (some say I willed it into happening this way just so I could write about it. They are not half wrong). You can read about it here and view the fabulous pictures Ben took of the wedding as well. See a little bit of magic here.

Losses

• I lost much muscle this year as I haven’t been working out as much as I like. Come 2025, I’m going to change this. Gotta get myself back in shape. This is not a resolution. Just something I need to do to feel like myself again.

• I lost my nerve, my confidence while applying for jobs through the middle of the year. It’s tough out there and it’s so easy to fall prey to your inner narratives. But I’ve ever since recovered my confidence, many thanks to my wife for sticking with me through it. As an episode title of my favourite story (FullMetal Alchemist: Brotherhood) reads I’m ‘Revving at Full Throttle.’

Writing

• My essay Engineering Myself was published in Human Parts at the beginning of 2024. It is the first essay I wrote during my MA in Creative Writing, acting like a dam between me and my inner self, one I didn’t know existed. Now it’s out and the flow is that much thicker. I’m forever grateful to the MA for creating a safe space for me to be able to write this.

• I started performing at The Moth Story Slams. I’ve done 3 this year and I’m hoping to do many many many more next year. It really helped rebuild my confidence—nothing quite like going on stage and baring your soul to complete strangers.

• I debuted a new story titled Bigger on the Inside with The Story Collider here in London. This one is special and lovely and I can’t wait to tell it again!

• My essay On Time is published in Tamarind Literary Magazine Issue 7. I’m extremely proud of this one—it took a lot out of me to write and I’m so glad that I did. It’s the craziest piece I’ve done and the closest I’ve come to writing about the things I really want to keep writing about. Get the issue here.

• Every 30th, I have successfully delivered a missive.

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Recommendations

• The Will of the Many by James Islington — best book I read all year (Can’t wait for its sequel).

• The Stranger Things: The First Shadow is hands down the best production and story I’ve seen played out live before me. Fabulous.

• Moon Music by Coldplay — the entire album is great but the title track is 🤌🏼

• So Long, Marianne — a limited series. If you are a Leonard Cohen fan, this is a show you must not miss.

What is some art that inspired you this year?

Leave a comment

Until next year,

Keep revving

Akshay

You’re reading Missives from an Island a newsletter by Akshay Gajria, a prize-wining writer, storyteller and writing coach. This newsletter is delivered to your inbox on the 30th of every month. You can also find Akshay on Threads, Instagram, and Medium. If you enjoyed reading, consider tipping him by buying a cup of tea (or three) here or buying his ebook (linked below). You can discover his work at akshaygajria.com