What to Expect from a Writing Collaboration, with Ruchin and Neil Kansal

COLLABORATIONS CAN BE DIFFICULT, exciting, revealing, gratifying and everything else in-between. When father and son, Ruchin and Neil Kansal, set out to rebuild a clunker car, they had no idea that they were also collaborating on a project to rebuild themselves, but in writing a book about their journey with a series of clunkers, that’s just what they did. Their book, The Kansal Clunker, The Car That Rebuilt Us, is just out from Kohler Books and is getting rave reviews, including one from Kirkus, proclaiming it, quote, “an endearing and thought-provoking road odyssey.” And it is just that, an odyssey and more, that received a number one rating as a new release on Amazon in family travel guides. But it’s not like any other travel guide, I assure you. Listen in and read along as we discuss what to expect from a writing collaboration, and so much more.

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Marion: So welcome, gentlemen.

Ruchin: Thank you for having us.

Neil: Thank you. Glad to be here.

Marion: So glad to have you here. Let me set this up for the audience. You open this book, The Kansal Clunker, The Car That Rebuilt Us, with these lines, quote, “Not all journeys begin with a roadmap or a destination.”

And you go on to relate that in the summer of 2020, when COVID locked us all down, you were, like many of us, well, locked down. And it was then that Neil, the son of this duo, expressed an interest in learning to drive a manual car.

But you didn’t own a manual car. And in a journey that will forever define a year of your lives, you decide to buy and modify a true clunker of a car, a thoroughly nondescript 1998 Acura Integra with almost 160,000 miles on it to see what happens next.

And a lot happens next. My audience is writers, all of whom have found themselves in a moment in life when they think, huh, this might make a good book. Sometimes it happens before the adventure, that moment of thinking that, and we go on and live that adventure with the intention of writing a book.

Sometimes it occurs to us later on and we need to recreate the beginning of that adventure. So, when along the way did you decide that there was a book here? And when did you start taking notes, if you did?

Ruchin: So, I will take this one, Ruchin. We did not start the project with the intent of writing a book. We started with the intent of just, you know, learning how to driver manual, which kind of ballooned into this idea of buy a clunker, build it up, drive it to a crazy place.

And then the second project was also a clunker, which was now, you know, we sold the first one. So we had to buy a next one, which was a 1983 Alfa Romeo Spyder. And same process. And we drove it to the northeastern point in the North American territory, which is Cape Spear.

And then we were like, we have done two projects, and this doesn’t seem to be another car on the horizon right now. And, you know, we were in two different places. And that’s where this idea of the book emerged, that maybe the book can be the third project that we can work together on.

So it wasn’t intentional from the start. It was just, you know, building off an idea over idea over idea.

Marion: Ah, so then you had to go back and recreate the experience. I see. And had you taken any notes along the way? I mean, I know you took pictures because we’re going to talk later about “The System,” which everyone will understand when I make that reference later on. But so did you find that recreating it was reliving it or recreating it was starting from scratch in this idea of working together?

Neil: No, I can take that one, Neil, here. But I think… It was really just reliving it. I mean, these trips were very meaningful to us. And we experienced a lot of things throughout the journeys, you know, something for you all to read and learn more about.

So I wouldn’t say it was hard to put those pieces of the story back together. You know, it kind of flowed pretty easily. But we definitely did have our documentation, all those pictures you mentioned. We documented our journeys on Instagram. And so going back through and seeing, oh, right, that’s what we did on this specific day. Things like that definitely helped our writing process.

Marion: Oh, that’s a great tip for people if they want to recreate something. Of course, in this generation where we just document everything, you could just go to your own Instagram account. I love that. That’s wonderful. Thank you for that.

So, Neil, you’re a graduate of Washington and Lee University. You co-founded a company. You’re a cellist and a certified EMT, and you now work at Deloitte. But at the time the story opens, you were 16 and a half. and a car enthusiast who had just gotten his driver’s license, but you craved the particular experience of driving a manual car, one with a stick shift.

What is it about the manual car that you saw lacking from your life?

Neil: Lacking from my life, sure. That’s a good way to put it, I guess. You know, I mean, cars have always been more to me than just a car, just a means to get from point A to point B. And I mean, my biggest dream from childhood was to drive a car. And so, you know, I got my license. I started driving our automatic vehicles. And I’m like, it’s still missing something. You know, I’m not really controlling the vehicle. And I know I have this idea of this beautiful thing potentially, right? The manual transmission is out there. I need to learn how to do it. And I’m not going to feel really complete until I’ve done that. And that’s kind of what gave me that drive.

Marion: I get it. I learned to drive on a manual myself and I miss it terribly. It’s just more interesting. It’s more efficient. It’s more fun. But it’s an extraordinary thing that you are heart set on this and that this kind of kicks off this grand adventure.

So, Ruchin, you are a professor at Seton Hall and Brown who advised companies on transformation. At the start of this tale, you’re nearly 49-years-old, and reckoning with a tumult created from a life shift from academia to the corporate world.

So, you both had some yearning, some longing, if you would, some unease. And not to push this metaphor too far, but you both had some rebuilding to do. And while the lockdown, of course, defined the kind of project you would and should undertake together at home, in the garage, where it’s safe, talk to me about the rebuilding. Would one of you just jump in and say, what is it that you envisioned that you needed to rebuild?

Rushin: Yeah. No, I mean, we did not envision that we needed to rebuild anything when we started. All we… we’re looking to do is rebuild the car.

And in the process, though, we realized that it was the car that rebuilt us, and that’s why the title, right? Because in the process of rebuilding the car, what really started to happen is conversations, right? Conversations between Neil and I, conversations between Gunjan, my wife, Neil’s mom, and I, and Neil, and then, you know, the larger community that started to form around us as we started to rebuild the car. And it’s those conversations that really helped us, one, discover the things we already had, the plentiful life we already have had. And, you know, we always get focused on what’s missing. But those conversations make you realize how much you already have.

And those conversations also allow you to then figure out, you know, what you can be and how you get there. And Neil always says this, and I’ll let Neil add to it. That, you know, not knowing where you’re going is okay as long as you’re willing to go there. And I think that’s what happened to us, right? We thought we are rebuilding the car, but the process of conversations really is what rebuilt us.

Marion: I love that. And Neil, what do you think? What did you need to rebuild, do you think? Or how long this process, this rebuilding started? Do you feel that you rebuilt something with your dad, your mom, those around you and yourself?

Neil: No, absolutely. I mean, as my dad just, mentioned, we didn’t go into it thinking we were going to be rebuilding anything, per se. But you know, throughout that process, I got to have some time with my dad, you know, he was always traveling through his jobs as I was growing up. So, it’s really nice to have that opportunity to be stuck at home with him and get to do that.

And we spent a lot of time talking about building the car and whatnot, but just also a lot about, you know, our lives, each other, what’s going on, arguing over this, arguing over that, listening to this song, doing that, you know. Things like that really help you build relationships, but also kind of understand more about yourself and, you know, where you came from. And, you know, being 16 and a half around that time, I was still very unsure of who I was. And, you know, in the process of building this car, I think I built a lot of confidence in myself, right?

It’s like, oh, I can actually do something. I can build this car. You know, I can learn a new skill. I can build a community around something. I can make new friends that way. So, I think it was really influential for me at that age to do all of this.

Marion: That’s lovely. And whenever I have memoirists on the show, and this is a piece of memoir, we talk about vulnerability. It’s my contention that authority is built through vulnerability, not through lecturing us or hectoring us or telling us what you did, but by first showing us what you lack, which you do.

So, if you’re writing about rebuilding, you’re writing from some form of vulnerability, showing us what you need to rebuild, as we just discussed. So how comfortable were you writing from that vulnerable space? I mean, I know that wasn’t the intent. The book wasn’t the intent when you set out to rebuild this car. But as you both so beautifully said, there was a lot that got built along with this clunker, rebuilt. And so, writing about it requires real vulnerability. Did you feel comfortable writing from that kind of space?

Ruchin: Yeah, that’s a very good one, right? It’s a very good question because it took us two years to write this. And we started to write it and we scratched it off. We started to write it and then we let it sit for six months. And then one day we said we have to write it. And so we started to write. Literally, I mean, we had written drafts, but it always was going to sit because we weren’t feeling very good.

And then, you know, we… started to get into it. And the thought process was, you know, when we started to put some frameworks around what we want to produce, we wanted it to be fun. We wanted to be authentic. We wanted it to be from the heart. And we wanted it to be something people could relate to as part of their day-to-day lives.

And with those goals in mind, when we started to write, I mean, we had no choice but to be vulnerable. We had no choice but to be authentic. We had no choice but to really put it out there as it is. And frankly, you know, if you talk to my wife, she’ll say, you know, now everyone knows our story.

But the way we look at it is we now have a story that people can relate to and find themselves in it. And therefore, the story may be something that people would want to read. So, yeah, I mean, I think we have been very vulnerable and it has exposed, you know, our family, our life, you know, things that have worked and not worked. But the feedback we have also been getting is because of that. It feels very authentic and people find their own stories in our story.

Marion: I certainly found that. I just thought back to those times with my own child sitting shoulder and shoulder and working on things. And that’s when the big questions come up. When you’re engaged in a piece of art, when you’re engaged in a piece of music, when you’re engaged in building something together, painting something together, I mean, it made perfect sense.

As soon as I got the pitch in the email about the book, I thought, Oh, I get that. I understand how this could be a transformative experience. And I think it’s very surprising because you go on a road trip, and the road trip is a classic American thing to write about. It’s usually written by men. The typical American road trip book is by men. There are so many obvious examples, William Least Heat Moon and John Steinbeck and Hunter Thompson.

It’s a predominantly male-dominated subgenre, always very muscular and buddy-buddy and soul-searching. This is not that. It’s one of the things I love about it. And the other thing is, of course, that most of them take place on America’s famed Route 66. You chose another route, in more ways than one. So, first of all, did you think of yourselves as contributing to this sub-genre of American literature, the great road trip? Was that on your mind when you started writing it?

Ruchin: So, I’ll give you my take, and Neil, I know you are looking to drive Route 66 now, so your take. For me, no, I mean, none of that, right? The way we chose our path was, you know, how can we one, be on a path where the clunker would survive or we would survive if the clunker dies.

Marion: It’s a hell of a standard.

Ruchin: And number two, there were a few places we wanted to revisit. So we had been to Colorado before. We had been to Mount Rushmore before, but we wanted to go there again. We had been to Michigan, but we wanted to go try the cherries and Traverse City and all again.

So, you know, our path was really created, and we wanted to go up into upper Michigan and we wanted to drive at least 5,000 miles. So that kind of defined our path of discovery going up and then a straight path back home. And the other defining piece of this path was my fascination and Neil’s chagrin of finding crazy places to visit, like the world’s largest rubber stamp or the world’s trout museum, et cetera. I mean, things that you’d never go and visit, but, you know, are really interesting to see and have fun with.

So, I mean, that’s how we chose the path. It was really about discovery and going where not many people go, not with a story in mind, but, you know, discovery. And, I mean, Neil, maybe you can talk about a few other things that, you know, this path provided us.

Neil: Sure. Yeah. I mean, in terms of the journey, I was along for the ride. Boy, was it one. Yeah. World’s largest trout. world’s largest rubber stamp, you know, lots of very interesting, but very characteristically American landmarks almost. I mean, you don’t hear about these things, but then you do, right? And I mean, there’s something to learn just from that.

You know, there’s a sense of humility. It’s, “Oh, look, it’s a giant fish and it’s made out of plastic.” But like, that is something, that’s something somebody built. And, you know, to them, that fish was just like our clunker was to us.

And so, you know, it makes you realize just, One thing I guess I really learned from that experience was, you know, don’t judge things when you look at them that way, because, you know, it might mean something very different to somebody else than it might mean to you. That’s one of the many lessons I think we talk about in this book that you hear through our stories. You know, we thought some beautiful things, some beautiful sites, you know, all the national parks, you know, animals roaming free, getting the opportunity to fly drones over these beautiful places and record footage that you can see on our website now.

Just a lot of great opportunity.

Marion: Yeah, it doesn’t resemble those big, muscular, male-dominated, drug-addled road trip things in the sub-genre of the American road trip at all. There’s just so much appreciation here for the clunker. And I just love the idea that you don’t want to be lost in a bad location if the clunker dies. That’s pretty funny.

So, some of my favorite, there are many favorite details from this book. One of my favorite details from this book is what you call “The System,” which reveals both The naivete of your mechanical intelligence, as well as your enthusiastic determination, involves Dixie cups and masking tape, not things usually associated with car mechanics. So, which one of you would like to explain the system to the audience?

Neil: Yeah, let me take this one. The system. Never called the system until we started writing this book and needed to call it something. And that’s, again, like we said, we didn’t go into this with the plan of writing a book, but that’s besides the point. The System.  My intelligent way to take a car apart and somehow put the thing back together.

And when you’re pulling the entire interior off a car or any part of the exterior, the whole bunch of very little parts that come out. And I mean, if those were all just lay out on the floor, that thing would have been in the junkyard. So The System allowed me to organize that it was Dixie cups that you know, my mom had ordered by mistake sitting in our garage, piece of masking tape and a Sharpie. “Front fender liner,” all the bolts go in there, you know, whatever other part all the bolts go in there, and then everything spread across our garage. I mean, it was pretty comical. We had at least 100, you know, 100 150 little cups just fold with nondescript parts sitting around.

But that system is what let us put it all back together.

Marion: That’s one of the most extraordinary details about the system. And perhaps you also want to mention that when you put it back together, fewer than five parts remained unaccounted for. That beats my husband’s record for every Christmas thing he ever tried to construct. Every American person’s reconstruction result ever, I think, right? So, I loved that. And congratulations. I think that perhaps… Oh, I don’t know, you should go down in some kind of Hall of Fame for fewer than five parts remaining unaccounted for.

Ruchin: Yeah, we still have that Dixie Cup with the five parts. We have left from the project.

Marion: Yeah, well, the photo of the Dixie Cups with the bolts in it just made my life very worth living. It was very, very wonderful for me. Having listened, you know, at three in the morning to my husband moaning and screaming over something he thought was going to take an hour to construct. So, it’s a wonderful story.

Another one of my favorite details. is the number of individuals who support this mission. You’ve got countless mechanics, car enthusiasts, your extended family and friends, the dog, all of whom you thank in your dedication for, quote, “Reminding us that there is still goodness in this world.” And I was very touched by that line. Was the world’s goodness, and whether it still existed, much on your minds at that time? Was it because of COVID? Just talk to me a little bit about situating this in the idea of goodness.

Ruchin: Yes. So in our day-to-day life in America, there seems to be just too much of negativity, right? I mean, if you open up the news channel, if you read the news, if you go to social media, everything is just negative, right?

And then you’re like, Really, are we living in such a horrible country? But the lived experience is very different, right? I mean, think of your neighbor, think of strangers, think of your, you know, community, think of the schools, think everyone is nice, everyone is good, everyone wants to do the right thing.

And that was an experience with our whole project, as well. I mean, there were times, there was a time in Upper Michigan, our car lost one of the, you know, wheel shields and we were stuck on the side of the road and trying to figure out how to fix it. And this guy who lived there walked out with his, you know, set of tools to help us out.

Marion: Yeah.

Ruchin: Right. And I mean, everywhere we went, and Neil, you want to talk about the community that you built around, you know, the enthusiasts?

Neil: Yeah, absolutely. So yeah, just not on the trip, but just locally. I mean, building this car, we weren’t mechanics. We didn’t have knowledge of how to do really anything. And so a lot of how we did things was, well, of course, watching YouTube videos, but also talking to people.

And, you know, one experience that stands out in my mind very clearly is was I needed to purchase a replacement door handle for the inside of the car. And so, I was scouring marketplace and I found a guy 30 minutes away who had one. So, you know, I went over to buy it from him, got to talking to him. And he became a great resource for us throughout. He had worked on Integras, you know, throughout his life. And if I had a question, “Hey, how’d you do that? Or hey, what part should I put here?” And I mean, like this guy is still one of my friends today. I still talk to him regularly. So you just get to meet people that way. And I thought that was really cool.

Marion: I think it is really cool. And I think in a time when let’s not kid ourselves, everybody’s looking down at their phones. Everybody’s just closed off. And then comes COVID. And we’re closed off at home. And you two built this world connected to this clunker.

I mean, this is not the kind of car I would have ever given a second look at. And the way you painted it and what you’ve done with it, I am going to, of course, put a link to your website there, because those drone videos of you driving this thing, they’re just so inspiring. Like, you did that? And I love the fact that it comes with this now extended family.

So co-writing, writing something together is a challenge unto itself. I’ve done it and many of the people listening, the writers listening in want to do it as well. And you’re giving a lot of people inspiration with this interview, I promise. They’re thinking, you know what, I could do that with my sister or I could do that with my mom.

So, you know, whether or writing a memoir or any other form of writing, switching voices is tough. you decided on writing alternate chapters, and you succeed wonderfully as we get to understand the motivations of you both, the challenges you face together, and separately, and end up valuing what you value. Nice work. When and how was the alternate voice decision made and what issues did you just come upon employing it?

Ruchin: So, you know, this was going to be another co-build, right? Using the car terminology. So, there was not even a, discussion that it will be written by one or the other. It was always going to be a collaborative project. Now, we had to, of course, like I said, you know, we wrote it twice and then shelved it and then we came back to it the third time.

So, in the writing process, it was always about, you know, what story are we going to tell? Because nobody’s interested in learning about, you know, how to build a car and read a book on that. People are interested in, you know, life and the things that happen to us in life. But we had to anchor the story around events that happened. So, you know, we came up with different chapter outlines, chapter headings, or, you know, how can we relive the journey day by day? And actually, that’s how the book is structured. Reliving the journey day by day of the journey.

And that gave us the clues on who is better suited to write what chapter. And, you know, because a lot of the car was actually built by Neil. I was emotional support. But a lot of the planning around the trip was done by me. And Neil was, you know, he just, you know, tagged along. So, both of us have our strengths and both of us have our gaps. And we try to figure out, you know, who can do what better. And then, of course, you know, once we wrote, we had a lot of harmonizing to do. But that’s my perspective. Neil, what’s your perspective?

Neil: I will say, you know, being 2025 or even when we started 2022, the beauty of Google Docs or Word Online or whatever is it’s, really easy to write with somebody in that sense. I had to see what they’re working on in the moment. I know that was helpful for me that was working on my sections to see, oh, you know, dad wrote this here. Maybe I could put a play on that and use it as a transition into my section or anything like that, you know, feeding off of each other. And the technology makes that a lot easier, I think.

Marion: Yeah, technology does make it easier. A shared document literally makes it available to us. But one of the things that isn’t easy is to get into the themes that you get into. We are literally madly cheering you on as this project goes. We are not cheering you on solely because of the car and that it made it up the mountain or how you rebuilt it. But because you included those emotional themes, you explore along the way of resilience, perseverance, adaptability, and courage. And it makes this book literally for everybody.

So I’m really interested, did those themes, did you write a draft and then say, “Wow, we talk about resilience, perseverance, adaptability, and courage in this. We better increase those sections a little bit. We better work on those a bit more.”

Or did you set out to talk about that when you finally decided to write this book after these car experiences? Did you say, let’s write a book that includes those themes? We’re cheering you on because you felt come to us with such great lessons in resilience, perseverance, adaptability, and courage. It’s rich and full. So how and when did those themes percolate up for you? And how did you divide them up the way you did?

Ruchin:  So, two things happened, right? As we wrote the book, you know, we were not writing for those themes. We were writing for the emotions behind the day, and how it connected to our backstories and our experiences.

And it’s funny that you say that because once we wrote it, then we wrote a couple of chapters around the learnings. And our biggest concern with actually those chapters were, do they feel too artificial? Do they feel too fake? And should we even have them in the book?

And then we asked for some people to read it and tell us if we should include them because we did not want to be artificial, right? We didn’t want it to be a book on life lessons. We wanted it to be a story of fun. And people said, “No, that’s the real value of this book.” And so we left them. But, you know, that was our thinking behind those. You know, we did not write for those, but they are most.

And then we thought we should kind of summarize them. And we did. And then, you know, it was like, let’s not overdo it because we are not writing this to preach. We are writing this to be a fun book.

Marion: Well, it is fun. But the messaging comes through loud and clear. Neil, what do you think? Did you find yourself enjoying those parts of writing about the emotional content? Was it something that you noticed after you read the first draft? How did that work for you in terms of noticing and then percolating up these themes? And give me a little bit more about the feedback from others. That’s really interesting. I agree with those others. I loved that these themes come through in this book.

Neil: Yeah, I mean, absolutely. From the start, I don’t think I had… key themes in mind. And honestly, you know, we wrote that first draft, put it away. We wrote the second, put it away. I don’t think it’s until, you know, we pulled it out for the third time and read what we had already. And we’re like, no, there’s definitely more here than we have already elaborated on. And it could be interesting to see where that goes. I mean, that took, like you were talking about earlier, extra vulnerability, which was definitely a challenge getting into.

But once we started to write that, I think the value became more apparent to us. And you know, some people called us a little preachy. And then that started, I mean, I was a little bit concerned about that, I guess, from the get go, it’s I don’t want this to come off as preachy. I’m not trying to preach to anybody, you know, at that point, probably 19 years old, when we were getting there, I can’t preach to anybody yet.

But so, you know, I think our feedback really helped ease that thought in my mind, you know, we had family members read it, we had some friends read it, you know, just people like us, you know, not fancy book editors or publishers or people who know all that much about a book necessarily.

But just people who really the end goal was to connect with the story.

Marion: Well, you did a good job, gentlemen. You connected with this reader and I’m sure you’re going to connect with many, many readers in an ever-expanding circle. I said yes immediately upon getting the email from you. And I say yes again to this book.

Thank you so much for coming along. Thank you for writing it. Thank you for doing this. Thank you for the clunkers that you’ve saved and the clunkers that you probably will save in the future. But this has been a joy. Thank you so much for coming along today and talking to me.

Ruchin: Marion, thank you so much for entertaining us, for having us on your show and for everything that you do. And hopefully, you know, our message will resonate.

Neil: Thanks, Marion. Take care.

Marion: You’re welcome. The authors are Neil and Ruchin Kansal. The book is The Kansal Clunker, The Car That Rebuilt Us, just out from Kohler Books. Get it wherever books are sold. See more on the authors and the book at the kansal clunker.com. I’m Marion Roach Smith, and you’ve been listening to QWERTY. QWERTY is produced at Overit Studios in Albany, New York. Reach them at Overit Studios dot com. Our producer is Jacqueline Mignot. Our assistant is Lorna Bailey. Want more on the art and work of writing? Visit marion roach dot com, the home of The Memoir Project, where writers get their needs met through online classes and how to write memoir. And thanks for listening. Don’t forget to follow QWERTY wherever you get your podcasts and listen to it wherever you go. And if you like what you hear, please leave us a review. It helps others to find their way to their writing lives.

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