I was up by 8:30 toady and my first thought was to keep lying on the bed, the day was overcast and cooler than usual, or maybe this is Mumbai and I am used to waking up in Delhi. Got a message from a friend the Delhi Literature Festival has been postponed due to the coronavirus outbreak that has gripped the capital. I got a taste of the virus when I first saw some fellow passengers wearing masks, also at the conference, we had sanitizers everywhere so people could clean their hands and rinse the virus off their skin. So far I am safe at least I don’t have any symptom of being sick, I did feel heavy in the morning that I guess must be my weight, I have put on a bit in the last few months and it is showing.
I got a call from Ashish the man from Pulling strings productions, he had reached there by now. I was still hesitant to get out of bed, “ Maybe I will join you late today reach by 11:00 am it’s the last day of the conference .” I said. I lumbered in the auditorium by 10:30 and got my badge of the day. There were a lot of writers talking today and we went into the nitty-gritty of pitching a project and writing a great script. There was a fireside chat with casting companies and agents alike.
Meet up with the Chocoholic Guy and showed him his post on my blog, our man was happy with my videos although he complained about the voice-over .” Maybe you can help me sell my books .” I quipped him, his outlet would be a perfect place to show are and sell some of my books especially the erotica genre.
Today I felt the energies were a bit down it was day two and all the bright media honcho’s had already made their presence felt on day one. The crowd was larger and there was also more media presence. But that emanate that much was more relaxed as no one was running towards the mutton dishes. I did meet a few talented scriptwriters who wanted to collaborate with me on building screenplays from my books. That was refreshing though some people remembered me from my acting days and reminisced about old ads of my and how I look so much like Ranveer Shourie. All this a welcome change I am enjoying the cation and networking of the last few days, it has kept busy and given some direction to somewhat purposeless life I have led so far.
I was through my lunch and enjoyed eating the Thandai Soufflé, it was done an early exit from the event me and Ashish were looking to go into the comfort of my OYO room to read and chill throughout the afternoon as we said goodbye to an enriching event where I did learn a lot and got many leads that would help me develop my stories further.
“ You have to see the game, the name of the game is packaging, once you have the story the screenplay then you need a good director and main lead, once you sign them, we just announce the project and platforms will buy it.” Ashish tried to explain his strategy which he had honed over time, being involved in film projects in the past he knew what was required to get the story sold to a platform or to a prospective producer. “ Raj Shandilya will be the director and we can get him on board when we pay him a signing amount, as soon as that is over we get the Rashmi Verma,” I added my bit to the imagination. We Had started indeed webbing the web, that’s something we do often when smoking pot together. We have even cast Ananya Pandey for the lead role and have got Ayushmann Khurana’s brother as one of the other leads. Looks interesting I must say, I have extended my stay in the maximum city for three weeks. Time to do some follow-up matings and try to sell some books. As I said the money is only in selling the rights of the book, not in the sales of the copies, you can never make money just by selling copies, you need to sell rights and value your book content enough.
I new wave of energy has hit me since the conference and now armed with knowledge and leads I can march forward trying to web the web.
