The Wryte People - I Wrote My Debut Novel in 27 Days and It Was a Bestseller

I Wrote My Debut Novel in 27 Days and It Was a Bestseller

Neil D'Silva; 11 October 2026

Writing a book had always been on my mind, but it took me until I turned 39 to actually do it.

It was October 2014, shortly before the Diwali festivities would begin. We had gone to Goa on a short family vacation. That was when this long-suppressed desire spilled out of me.

I had been teaching at my coaching institute for eighteen years then. I love to teach, but it was also a lot of work. My passion for teaching had sustained me for all those years. But a feeling of dissatisfaction had begun to creep in. I am a creative person, always was, and as it happens to all creative people, being stuck in a routine began to get stifling.

On the second night of the vacation, after the children had gone to bed, my wife and I sat on the balcony of Calangute Beach Residency, overlooking the beach. Drinks in hand, the mood quickly got pensive. Anita asked me why I had been moping around for so many days, and I said it out loud in so many words, “I am not happy with what I am doing.”

“What do you want to do then?” she asked.

It promptly came out: “I want to write a book. Become an author.”

I waited for her to react. Maybe she’d tell me that it would not work, or books don’t make money, or voice her concerns about the children’s future, but all she said was, “Okay, do it.”

That was it. No drama, no big talk, nothing. Just encouragement.

Well, that night I stayed up. I had carried my old, battered Toshiba laptop along, where I began to write down a rough outline of a story that had been gnawing at my mind. The story idea itself had hatched in my mind after seeing the many honeymooning couples on the beach earlier. The thought was: “These couples look so happy, but how much do they know about each other? What secrets may they be hiding from each other in their newly married hearts?”

That was how it started. The process of writing my debut novel, which would eventually sell 3,000 copies in its first month, stay on the top ten of Amazon India (horror) for close to two years, and be recognized by many readers as the novel that set the trend of contemporary Indian folklore horror.

That was the birth of Maya’s New Husband.

I didn’t have a lot of time. It was the vacation period and I had to make the most of it. Once the coaching classes started again, I’d be back to teaching twelve hours a day. I sat down to calculate how much time I had. I could eke out a month to write. Everything had to be done quickly.

Let me tell you: first novels are a pure joy to write. You’ll never have that same feeling again. As I started writing the chapters, I experienced that. My protagonists taking life, the settings beginning to breathe, the plot unravelling… all of that happened so naturally and so beautifully. I didn’t have a detailed outline; I considered my first draft to be an extended outline. I was telling myself the story as I wrote. I was seeing it take form and it was exhilarating.

What helped me was the years and years of reading. There was never a time in my life when I wasn’t in the midst of reading some book or the other, even in my youngest years. I had inherently picked up the craft of writing from all the books that I read. In addition, I also feel I am blessed with that rare, innate ability to tell stories and make them sound natural and real. I went all out in writing my first book, and it worked.

A few days later, I thought of exploring the writing communities on Facebook. One of them piqued my interest. This was Wrimo India, the Indian chapter of NaNoWriMo. I liked how these people were all writing books, chasing the goal to complete 50,000 words in the month of November. I became a part of it. While I continued to write on my own, it was fun to be part of a community where we could support and encourage each other, and keep going.

I started a group on Facebook as well, named For Writers By Authors, which exploded to 30,000 members. They were all writers, mostly new, and everyone writing their manuscripts. It was an astounding place to be in. We wrote, shared excerpts, got encouraged, and then wrote more. Many of us finished our manuscripts and got published.

But for me the biggest feedback came from Anita. Our routine was simple. I’d write a scene or two every night, and in the mornings after breakfast, she would sit beside me and read what I had written. She’d read every scene intently, while I’d observe every wrinkle, every frown on her face. It is sheer bliss to see someone read your writing firsthand. Anita would give her brief inputs. Nothing major, mind you, because she didn’t want to influence my original thought. But just the fact that someone was invested in reading what I wrote was enough for me to keep writing. I knew that if no one else, there was at least my wife who’d read my book.

With a copy of the newly published Maya's New Husband in 2015

I finished the first manuscript of Maya’s New Husband on 21 November 2014. It had taken me 27 days to write. There were some revisions during the writing. There had been times when I didn’t know what the next scene would be. Factoring all that, I wrote the manuscript in 27 days.

And it bowled me over.

The mere fact that I had a manuscript; it was incredible! Yes, it would require editing. Maybe some rewriting. Better phrasing. Proofreading. All of that, for sure. But, at that moment, I was euphoric. I had a whole goddam manuscript. Around 75,000 words, all in. And I was happy with what I had written.

I shall tell you in a later post how the book became a bestseller. Getting readers for it warrants a post of its own.

I often go back and retrospect: how could I write Maya’s New Husband so quickly and how did it work so well? I always come back to the following points:

I did not have a rigid outline. I had the major markers in mind, and I worked with those.
I wasn’t adamant about anything. I was ready to change the plot, the characters, even the scenes if the story required it as it unfolded.
I did not edit as I wrote. While writing, I only focused on telling the story.
I did not let anyone else’s writing influence me. Not trying to shoehorn the story as per anyone else’s expectations helped me find my own style of writing.
I did not have any filters or censors. Maya’s New Husband is a very stark, very bold book. I did not want to cramp its style or mine by adding reservations.
I did not disclose my entire plot to anyone. That kept the story fresh in my mind.
I shared small excerpts in my Facebook communities. People largely loved it, and whatever feedback came, I took it sportingly. However, I also stuck to my guns when I was convinced about what I had written.
I worked with a disciplined routine. Two hours of writing a day were non-negotiable. Even more whenever I could manage it.
Most essentially, I announced to everyone that I was writing a book. That created accountability, which led to better productivity.

I’ll end this post by saying that such things do happen. Dreams do come true. Given the right time and effort, and being equipped with the required creative chops, one can write a manuscript in a few months with a proper goal in mind.

That’s what we aim to do with The Wryte People: to get more people to write their manuscripts and fulfil their dreams. I did it on my own, but the right guidance and support can make most people authors before they know it.