2025 was a very interesting year for me, coming on the heels of 2024 when my book The Henna Start-Up released and won multiple awards. In 2025, I was nervous about putting out my first work of non-fiction, as someone who has only written fiction all my life.
Learning to Make Tea for One – Reflections on Love, Loss and Healing was a deeply personal, private book that I was putting out into the world. I was very nervous and anxious, but people have been very kind and readers really connected with it. Last year, I also moved to Malaysia with my children, another huge step for me given that I have never lived anywhere else other than Bengaluru.
Living well, for me personally, would be being able to make decisions for myself and for my family without having to justify it to anyone else. I think so far, thankfully, I have managed to do that and in a way, I am living well. Me living well has to do with my family, and how comfortable everyone is. This might make me seem very insular or isolated. But I just feel like we are a very small, tight unit and living well for me would be to make sure that this stays on course.
I am currently reading the fifth book in The Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins. It has been years since I read the Hunger Games trilogy. I recently read the fourth book and I was just taken back into that world, and I am really enjoying it. I love reading fantasy and crime fiction in general as well.
I’m not really sure if I can call this a daily indulgence since I do not think about it much, but for me, a daily indulgence is eating chocolate. It has become a part of my day and sounds like something a teenager would say. But as a grown-up, I think indulgence would be for me to get my work done and to be able to relax with a good book at the end of the day. I feel very relieved when I finish all my work for the day, I can shut down the laptop and not look at it until the next day. It might seem like something very normal, but when you are busy with work this does feel like an indulgence.
Writing for me, has a lot to do with being very stubborn. I think another name for stubbornness would definitely be persistent, and I kind of feel like I do both. I am very persistent and I don’t feel like my job is done once I have written a book.
I also self publish books and that is a very different ecosystem where readers expect books faster and faster. I put a pause to it recently because I felt like I was on a hamster wheel. I have stepped back from it for a bit now. But what has given me discipline is to treat my writing as a job and not as something that I do when I feel inspired or when I’m in the mood for it. So, I write whether I’m inspired or not and whether I’m in the mood for it or not. Writing is a very crucial part of my day and I think being persistent and stubborn in the face of rejection has definitely kept me going since 2009 when my first book was published.
I still keep receiving rejections from publishers but it is important to not let that bog you down. I would ask budding writers to do the same; to keep at it, be persistent, develop a thick skin and not take things personally.
Catch Andaleeb Wajid in conversation with Soma Basu at Love Loss and Healing, as part of the The Hindu Lit For Life at The Hindu Showplace on January 17 at 2pm. She will also be in the session The Place of Fiction with Keshava Guha, in conversation with Radhika Santhanam at The Hindu Pavilion at 1.45pm on January 18.
