More Than Gold

ending author's note

I never think of this book when I talk about the work I'm most proud of, or any of the books in this series for that matter. What this book is to me is a stress reliever. I have a ball making all those aesthetics and social media stuff. I write this series for fun and I don't mind admitting it one bit!

I began writing this series back in 2015. The original book was called Whims of the Bewildered (I have long since taken it down due to the cringey writing, but will incorporate a lot of the storylines and characters into The Golden Girl), and through it introduced Dahlia and followed her antics with my original baby boy Aryan Malik.

My plan from the get go was to set this story as close to my own reality as possible. Most of the characters I have written are based on people I have met in real life (ofc romanticized versions of them) and fictional characters I admire. A lot of the story lines are derived from things that happened, or I wished would happen to me! This series became a mixture of my reality and some of my most desirable fantasy.

Even if the first book in the series didn't work out, I couldn't let go of the characters. I began writing FoG at a time in my life when I was very lonely. I was in Uni, graduating soon with no idea where I was heading to. I was still discovering myself and had no idea who I was or wanted to be. I was lost, stressed and anxious, to say the least.

So I poured into my writing what my soul was searching for – finding oneself, coping with peer pressure, fear of leaving the nest, yet, the support of a tight-knit group of friends and family to get through it all.

Writing about these characters made me feel not-so lonely. Knowing there are people out in the world who (even if fictional) are going through similar things that I am made it easier to bear through. Plotting all those dinner parties gave me a cocoon of that feeling of community I was craving, and thinking about the girls' support for each other filled the emptiness in my heart.

The plot of More Than Gold ensued solely to play out D&K's relationship. I have mentioned it before, but saying it again, these two characters were introduced to the story at first as sides, with no intention of giving them their own storyline. However, I fell in love with them and their chemistry, and knew I needed to do them justice; hence this book. I have been writing The Golden Girl for five years now, I wrote Fallacies of Gold for three, but this book took me only a couple of months to complete!

People leave their imaginary friends once they leave their childhood, but ya'll, I took mine to Uni with me.

As crazy as it sounds, my fictional characters helped me through some pretty rough times. Writing out the changes I was going through emotionally was tremendously helpful. When the series began, you can see my main leads are bitter towards their society, they are annoyed with their parents, at the same time they are afraid to leave the nest; but by the end they realize their parents are merely human, begin to view their society with more forgiving eyes and get ready to face the world with more excitement than fear.

Towards the beginning, all I wrote were sleepovers, fun antics with friends and family rendezvous; but towards the end you see me veering towards the realities of life - losing friends, heartbreaks and learning to be independent.

The development of my characters are things I was going through with them. The changes in their mindset come from my own with my life experiences over the years.

Even today, when I feel stressed and overwhelmed, I redirect myself into this little world I have created and voila! I instantly feel better. These characters, over the years, have become my comfort zone.

Posting this series on this platform has brought me a lot of joy. I made so many new friends and FoG is one of my fastest growing books. I began writing this at a time when I felt lonely and isolated. Coincidentally, I became ready to post this book at a time when the entire world was in a similar state – during lockdown. So many people have reached out to me and told me they were vicariously living through all the weddings and dinner parties. The family gatherings brought them the comfort and joy they were missing out on.

Thank you for making this journey with me, for sticking with me till the end, for all the love and support. I honestly can't express my gratefulness enough.

These characters would be hard to leave behind. We still have TGG to get to, but we were permanently saying goodbye to a lot of our favorites.

I hope you enjoyed reading about the desi parties, the love stories, the family drama, the nosy aunties, and Salman, Dahlia – and me – growing up.

XO.

P.S: A fourth book has been announced. The preliminaries and synopsis of After The Gold can be found in my profile.