Nikita Singh’s romance with a difference, Letters to My Ex, is an exchange of letters between two people who have hurt each other and are trying to recover from it. Talking about the content, the bestselling author of ten novels, including Every Time It Rains and Like a Love Song, says, “I always write about relationships — love and falling in love. But this time I wanted to talk about two people falling out of love. Also, the format being exchange of letters provided me space to put myself into their shoes and think about how they would react to a certain situation — figure out what went wrong, how to sort it out while trying to get over it.”
Singh not only uses letters but text messages and emails that were exchanged between the two, and also hand-written letters that were never exchanged.
The mixed emotions of heartbreak and healing form the core of the book. “Everyone has different ways of dealing with heartbreak, while some work, others fail,” says Singh who worked in Delhi for a few years before moving to New York where she deals with digital content and marketing for a solar energy company.
For Singh the entire process of writing is emotional. While the book deals with an overflow of emotions, she does not consider it to be the hardest book she has written so far. “I describe a writer as someone who is very empathetic because the only way one is able to care so much about a fictional character is because one feels what the other people feels. It did get very intense and emotional at certain points but I enjoyed writing it all.”
The novel touches on the softer feelings of the heart that every person experiences in life. However, with life moving at such a fast pace and career dominating one’s priority list, feelings and emotions at times tend to get left behind. But Singh does not feel people are less emotional. She says, “People might not find time to dwell on certain emotions or might not be able to express it too well but it doesn’t mean they don’t feel enough, making the book and the issue it deals with relatable to all. Also, people who find time to read books often want to stop and consider what shape their lives are taking.”
