Guest Post of Half Pants Full Pants

Hello lovelies,

I know it is been a while since I posted any guest post. This doesn’t mean that I didn’t invite any guests on my blog. The things have been so hectic that I hardly got the time to submit it. Today we have Anand Suspi, the author of Half Pants, Full Pants. I asked him a question and he answered that in a beautiful way.

What is the idea behind writing this book?

Let me break this up into 3 parts:

Before writing: This is an accidental piece of work. My advertising work keeps me so busy that I never had any notions of writing a book. As I have mentioned in the preface, I sat down to write a page or two to convince myself that I could write beyond advertising and ended up putting my childhood down.

 

While writing: A few chapters into the book, I harboured no thoughts of wanting to write a book. Several childhood incidents kept cropping up and I kept penning them. The only audience I had in mind was my childhood friends.

 

Post writing: Now on hindsight, I can surmise that the idea of the book is to re-live the innocence and simplicity of our growing up years. In the not-so-distant past, life was very real and meaningful. People led simple lives with much joy and contentment. Limited choices and exposure made us savour every little thing. Today, our lives have been twisted beyond recognition and reasoning. Technology has subtracted far more than it has added (at least, that’s how I feel) We are living vacuous lives consuming terabytes of idiotic stimuli, commenting upon anything and everything (where 99% of things have no relevance to our lives) and constantly comparing ourselves to the world around. For most people, the locus of control has become external. It’s a stupid way to live. I know that this book will take every reader back to his or her real days. There’s nothing big or fanciful that happens throughout the book. It’s a collection of small joys, little adventures, naïve dreams, idiotic experiments and modest lives that all of us have lived through. I happened to pen it down but it is really, everyone’s book.
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Spotlight of The Secret of God’s Son by Usha Narayanan

THE SECRET OF GOD’S SON
by
Usha Narayanan
 
 

 


Blurb
 
‘The seas will devour the glorious city of Dwaraka. People will forget your name and your Gita. May the world perish! May the world perish!’


With this cruel curse on Krishna, Queen Gandhari plunges mankind into the unspeakable evil of the Kali Yuga. 

 
It is up to Pradyumna to try and reverse the dire prediction. To journey into terrifying realms, confront Yama and Shiva, and to vanquish the Kali demon. In order to do so, he must shed all that holds a mortal back—his arrogance, his fears, his baser instincts… He must lead his people out of the swirling vortex of greed, disease and misery. And there is one powerful weapon still…the secret surrounding Pradyumna’s origin.  
 
Will he uncover it in time to fight off the cataclysm? 
In the answer lies the destiny of all humanity! 
 
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About the author

 

 

 

 

 

USHA NARAYANAN

 

 

 

Usha Narayanan had a successful career in advertising, radio and corporate communications before becoming a full-time writer. She is the author of The Madras Mangler, a suspense thriller, and Love, Lies and Layoffs, a light-hearted office romance. The Secret of God’s Son is the sequel to her bestselling book, Pradyumna: Son of Krishna, which was published in July 2015. 

 

 

 

 

When she’s not juggling travel, writing and interviews, Usha reads everything from thrillers to romances, provided her cat isn’t fast asleep on her Kindle. She would love to hear from her readers here: [email protected] 

 

 

 

You can stalk her @

 

 

 

Website | Facebook | Twitter 

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Media mentions

 
Praise for Pradyumna: Son of Krishna
 
Usha Narayanan has taken a quantum leap . . . to the outright spine-tingling narrative from the leaves of a time before. This book is Indian writing coming of ageFemina
 
Like the best of our mythological tales, this too, is a multilayered one . . .There is valour, there is cowardice, there is glory, there is shame, there is sex, lies and deceptionThe Hindu
 
This engrossing tale takes readers on a mythological sagaTimes of India
 
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P.S. also read the Guest post by this author- /2016/09/12/guest-post-by-usha-narayanan/

 

Guest Post by Usha Narayanan

Hello fellow Readers,

Today I would like to invite a well known personality who has recently launched her novel The Secret of God’s Son. With the novel reveal you might have guessed who she is! Yes, She is our dear Usha Narayanan. Over to you maam 🙂

Guest Topic: Which is the most comfortable genre for you to write and why?

I did not really agonize over a choice of genre and blithely wrote whatever took my fancy. First came a thriller (‘The Madras Mangler’), next a romcom (‘Love, Lies and Layoffs’) and two mythological tales (‘Pradyumna: Son of Krishna’ and my latest, ‘The Secret of God’s Son’). In my view, the essentials of a good book, whatever the genre may be, are always the same: an engrossing plot, vivid characters and a climax that boldly affirms the victory of good over evil. Each genre of course has its own grammar and I had to master its nuances and write accordingly. A thriller is like a giant jigsaw puzzle and becomes a huge intellectual exercise. A romcom traverses the inner landscape and focuses on the rainbow hues of love. And a myth encompasses not just the three realms of the universe, but also the physical, emotional and spiritual dimensions.

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My favourite genre, not because it is easy to write, but because it is so highly challenging and rewarding, is mythology. First, the stories and the characters are magical and have endured for centuries. The possibilities to expand on them or give them new forms are endless. Second, myths are often set in distant worlds, but they are still real, relatable and exhilarating. The gods and even the demons exhibit human appetites and instincts such as greed, fear, anger and lust. Third, these tales satisfy our thirst for happy endings in an unhappy world, where villains are brought down with a satisfying flourish. Fourth, they help us reach a better understanding of abstruse concepts such as life and death, heaven and hell, suffering and bliss. They also enlighten us on secular and cultural concepts such as sovereignty, rights, responsibilities and the role of women in society.

Above all, I love myths because they celebrate the triumph of the human spirit and inspire us to evolve beyond the personal to the universal and perhaps the divine.

Thank you, Surbhi, for giving me this opportunity to feature on your blog and to interact with readers. I welcome questions and feedback from every one of you.

Guest POst by P.G. Van

Hello Readers,

I hope you all are doing well. It is being long time since I posted any guest post.So, here I am, to post about it. Today, I am going to invite P.G. Van, an amazing author on my blog and she will share something with us. Lets see whats stored in her post! Over to you maam:

 

Surbhi Guest Post 250-300 words each.

Write about your favourite genre of writing?

It is most definitely the Romance genre. The romance genre has many variations and offers the writers a lot of freedom to build their characters and plots. The best part of the romance genre is the obvious happy endings but it allows the writers to be innovative and creative while telling the story of how the charaters get to their happy ending and how love brings them together.

When I think of a story, the first thing I think about is how can I make this a romance novel and then figure out how to add the secondary element which is usually a mystery or drama. Some people may find the romance genre very unrealistic but as long as the reader is able to experience the emotions of the characters and escape to the world of love and romance there is nothing surreal about it. It is up to the author to strike the balance with the realistic and the fantasy parts of the story.

My next step is to explore Historical romance and I know I will get a lot of opportunity to explore historic events and lifestyle.I love writing about the outfits the characters wear and the setting and a historical setting is a writers paradise.

One other sub-genre that I want to write some day is a Romance thriller and I have a long way to go but I know I will get there.

 

About the Author

 

 

 
DESTINY DECIDES… A tale of two hearts in search of true love
by
P.G. VAN
 
 
 
Blurb
 
Sameera lives a simple and fun life that she has structured with utmost care ensuring that she was focused on work and also keeps in touch with the classical dancer in her. Sameera has endured tough times in her life at a young age and wonders if she could ever hang on to anything that makes her life perfect.
Nick is a successful businessman who went to high school with Sameera, back when they lived in India. He re-enters her life taking her by surprise and in no time expresses his love for her. He wins her heart with his enigmatic but sweet gestures. He convinces her to move in with him.  Nick gives her the confidence and support that she needs to overcome her doubts.
Sameera starts to feel like Nick is the secret to happiness, she finds out that there is a search underway for her. Nick tells her that an Indian royal family is trying to locate her family. Fully convinced that it was a misunderstanding she ignores Nick’s warnings about the people that were searching for her and travels to India for a family emergency.
 
A member of the Royal Family that has been searching for her, meets Sameera as soon as she reaches India. Nick follows her to India a short while later and asks her to marry him to which she agrees whole-heartedly. The story ends on a happy note but with an open question around why Nick’s extended family in India is looking for Sameera’s family.
 
Grab your copy @
 
 
Excerpt from #DestinyDecides
I was running through this list in my mind when I heard a very soft knock behind me. I turned around and found Nick standing in the doorway in a dark gray suit and his seductive smile on his face.
Not caring about what I had in my hand, I let it drop to the floor and ran into Nick’s arms. His tight hold and the sweet masculine smell were proof that I was not hallucinating.
“Nick,” I said finding my voice and added, “When did you get here?”
He gently put his arms around me and said, “I got here when you were just about to wrap up your lovely dance,” and added, “I am still wondering how you can move your waist so gracefully.”
Nick brushed his lips against my sweaty temple and let out a heavy breath. This simple gesture kick started my heart to a heart rate no amount of workout would give me. Nick moved his arm down my back to the waistband of my capris and expecting him to sneak his fingers in to find my waist chain, I pulled back slightly and said, “Give me fifteen minutes to shower and change,” and asked, “Where are we going for dinner?”
Nick smiled at me and said, “Where we are headed, you are better off not changing now.”
I looked at him suspiciously and asked, “What does that mean?”
“Why don’t you grab your stuff, and I will tell you on our way there,” he teased as I put on my sleeveless vest over my sports bra.
As Nick walked towards the parking lot, I went to the locker to grab my bags and went back into the parking lot to find him standing next to my car. I dished out my keys from my bag, and as I approached him with my car keys in my hand, in a swift move, he grabbed the keys out of my hand and said smiling, “You will not need your car tonight.” As I looked at him in utter confusion, I saw him wave to someone and in the next instance, I saw Mitch, the limo driver, emerge from the darkness and catch my car keys that Nick had tossed to him.
“Mitch, you know where the car needs to go?” Nick asked him, and Mitch replied, “I got it, Nick.”
“Nick, what’s going on?” I asked annoyed with his action.
“We can go in my car, and Mitch will give your car keys to Nethra after he drops it off at your place,” Nick clarified.
“Nate is at home? How do you know that?” I inquired.
“I know because she came to meet Srini at the airport, and they were headed to your place,” he said thoroughly enjoying himself looking at my expression.
Nick signaled to Mitch to give him his car keys and as Mitch tossed the keys, I reached for them and grabbed them mid-air before Nick could get them.
Mitch looked at Nick apologetically, to which Nick said, “No worries, Mitch,” and smiled at me.
“So, will you be driving us to our destination?” he asked, his tone filled with joy.
“Yes, I most definitely can,” I said looking at the keys and realizing that what I had in my hand was a key fob for a Porsche, and the fob was designed to look like a little Porsche car.
“This key fob is so cute, and this is not the car I thought you were driving,” I said confused.
“The Rover is to take my mom around as she refuses to ride in my Porsche,” he said smiling.
I swallowed the lump that formed in my throat as I wondered if I should really drive his car. I saw Nick look at me with a wicked smile on his face. Refusing to chicken out, I held my chin high and said, “Let’s go.” I heard him chuckle behind me as if he knew I was terrified to drive his mean machine to an unknown destination. With a high sense of pride, I clicked the unlock button on the key fob. The car was a few cars away and was a midnight blue Porsche Carrera 911 and looked super sexy in the night lights.
I walked around to the driver’s side and in the dim lights on the inside I saw the sight that made my heart sink. This model was one of the very few cars in its class that still offered a stick shift, and this model pacified the stick shift driving enthusiasts with the seven-speed transmission. I hesitated for a few seconds debating if I should take the risk of driving the car. Nick was observing my reactions to the things that I have been discovering and asked in a soft voice, “Having second thoughts, love?”
“No,” I blurted out with immense pride and opened the door to put my bags in the back seat gracefully sliding into the low slung, deep-pocketed driver’s seat. Nick took off his suit jacket and put it in the back seat. He undid a couple of buttons on his shirt and kicked back into the passenger seat.
Nick looked at me as I sat in silence looking around the interior of the car in awe and very softly said, “Ignition to your left, key fob in there, and I suppose you are familiar with the third pedal down there?”
“Nick, I can’t do this. I just wanted to show you how annoyed I was when you took my keys,” I confessed putting my face in my palms.
‘Sameera, you can do this. I know you learned how to drive a stick shift back in India,” he encouraged.
“Nick, that was ages ago, and this is such a nice car and I am so intimidated by the power of this beauty,” I said my voice trembling.

 

“Sameera, don’t worry about the car. I know you love fast bikes and cars so enjoy the drive.” 

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About the author

 

 

 

 

P.G. Van

 

 

 

P.G. Van lives in San Francisco and she published her first novel, Destiny Decides… in October 2015 and cannot stop writing. She loves to spend time with family and is a strong believer of retail therapy (mostly shops for boots and purses!!). She enjoys giving her readers an escape to the world of love and romance.

You can stalk her @

 

 

              

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Book Review :Elements of Life By Inderjit Kaur

Elements of Life A Living Series by Inderjit Kaur is the second book I have read in the series. This is one of the inspirational read I have come across. I got this book from the author in exchange of an honest review. Lets analyse it deeply :

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Cover- The cover surely gives a clue about her important themes which are to be talked in the book. Hence, it fascinates the reader.

Title- Just as elemets of nature work for a proper cycle to be maintained same way, Elements of Life work to make our mind in better way. This is the apt title she came our with.

What the book is about?

Well the book comes under Motivation and Inspiration genre. This book showcase the four elements of life : Air which signifies authenticity; Fire that signifies compassion; Water that signifies courageousness and Earth signifies Gratefulness. These comes under the first section and the author narrates incidents and anecdotes on the base of these elements. The sunject matter revolves arounf this.

The second section includes the JOurnal entries of the author. She focusses on two main things : I Say Yes to Life and Yes, I can. These two parts fills us with new hopes and vibes which help us to forget our hard times. Furthermore, it gives us the strength to move ahead with new spirits and positivity.

The third section includes Rendezvous Reflections where the author has penned down an enthralling poem.

Style – The book is an easy read. The language used is lucid and the author has used pithy style of writing at some places. The narratives are personal as well as impersonal. The descriptions are beautiful. The use of transfer epithets, metaphorical words, allusions, anecdotes, similes makes the reading more fruitful. Every line is a highliter for me and the author’s inspiration towards Paulo Coelho could be noticed as her first page always includes a quote by him :

“And, when you go back, you havw to worry only about the best way of moving forward.”

~Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

Other favourites :

“Just enforce the seed of discipline; forge strong self- belief and start scaling success for a very peaceful and beautiful life.”

“Don’t forget that your strength lies in the choices that you make.”

“Socrates once said: THe unexamined life is not worthy living.”

Availability- https://www.amazon.com/Elements-Life-living-Inderjit-Kaur-ebook/dp/B00S2A8214

https://notionpress.com/read/elements-of-life

Book Launch- http://booklaunch.io/inderjit%20kaur/elementsoflife

INterview – http://effrosyniwrites.com/2015/11/30/interview-with-inderjit-kaur/

About the Author

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Inderjit Kaur is an author, motivator with a powerful voice of spreading positive words through her writings. A highly influential blogger and inspirational guide who with her tag line ‘Keep smiling, keep shining’, has brewed up with the original concept of living through her books of A living series.

ALso Read –

Book Review of Kaliedoscope – /2016/06/16/kaliedoscope-colours-of-life-a-living-series-book-3-a-review/

Guest POst- /category/guest-posts/

 

 

Guest Post by Manveen Kaur

Hey lovelies.. Today I am here to introduce you guys with a dear friend of mine, Manveen Kaur..I hope you will like her poetry..

LET’S BARTER SOME THINGS TODAY

Let’s barter some things today,
Let the things be replaced by feelings, emotions maybe life,
I am not afraid, not worried,
For a “man helps man” has given me a destined courage,
I allow you to overflow my intactness,
I invite you to barter your life with mine.
Let all my smiles puffing in my cheeks,
and all the glitters i earned by awestruck amazements
be your definition.

and
your tired, dark-circled dream-carriers,
your subdued mind in the bones and skin container
be my new designation.

About the Guest

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Manveen Kaur hails from Ludhiana. She is studying Creative Writing from Langara College, Vancouver. She is also the host of radio show :Vancouver Co-0p radio CFRO. She is an avid reader and a prolific writer. She loves to pen down her thoughts and with her poetic aura mesmerise the minds of her readers. She can be contacted at :

https://www.facebook.com/manveen.kaur.31105?fref=ts

[email protected]

 

Guest POst by Maisha

Hello Fellow readers! Its been a while since I have posted guest post so here I would like to talk about the youngest guest whose work speak more than her. Lets read together what she has to say :

Fall in Love…with your heart!

“It wasn’t long ago when he decided to give up on me, he didn’t have enough words to justify his deeds neither do I think that he wanted to, but he simply preferred to walk out of my life, just as quick as the snap of my fingers.”

 What I do not understand is, why have people stopped confronting their own deeds. They prefer walking in and out of your life as if you’re a doormat at their service, as if they never thought of you to be anything more than a lifeless entity which will never question them no matter what you may do and so is why they think that walking out is okay, and walking out without an explanation is perfectly alright as it will not matter much to you.

For what they aren’t aware of is the fact that you aren’t them. It might not matter to them, but it does matter to you as you witness sleepless nights, late mornings and a non existent lifestyle for months to go from there. What they do not know is the fact that there are things you keep on asking your soul, lost in those unanswerable questions for it’s only them who could answer them. Questions which land up being a question mark on your personality.

“Was it you who could not make them stay? Was it all your fault? Did you do something which made them walk away? Or was it that they find someone to be better than you could ever be?”
Such questions gift you these nights where a million thoughts cross your mind where you think you’re unworthy of anyone, or anything which surrounds you, but what you should know is the fact that nobody has the right to make you feel unworthy.

A betrayal shouldn’t make you question your existence, for the someone who left doesn’t define you. Your soul, your heart and your personality does so. A person can never be in control of another, and one should not hold out their control to someone for you may never know when they might think that it’s unnecessary for you to be there with them and they walk away with your control, do not let that happen for it’s then when you have no clue why things change in you, your stay a lot less happier and chirpy. Nobody seems to set things straight for you as you made that one mistake to give up on your control over yourself, smile through the waves of betrayal for what’ll reach the shore later will be a stronger version of you who’ll know how to set sail in the storms and fall in love with the hurricane which might visit you soon after.

A simple thing which has to be looked over is the fact that you must rule your own heart, you must fall for yourself in order to love another and you must know how it is to walk away for you may not walk over someone, specially without an explanation. Hurting someone does not lend in peace, it only devastates the remains of the peace you thing exists in you.

About the GUest

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Manvi Singh is a 17 years old, passionate soul who’s one and only dream is to make this society a better place to live in. Being a wordsmith, she believes that her words will definitely change the mindset of the people someday.
Apart from being a creator of a dreamworld, she’s also an avid reader, from Sudeep Nagarkar, Novoneel Chakraborty, Sachin Garg to Paulo Coelho, Roald Dahl, and Jhumpa Lahiri everything resides in her and her bookshelf.
She loves to dance, paint colors in her life and also, in between all these things she often tries her hands in culinary arts.
She visualises that she owns the spark of achieving the impossible and she believes that someday, she definitely will. She has penned herself with the name ‘Maisha’ on her blog Maisha “A Voice Within” and many other such platforms.

Guest Post by Divyam Kaushik

Hello lovely readers, Today we have Divyam KAushik as our guest who will enlighten us about the Gender Inequality that has become so common these days. Thankyou so much Divyam for throwing light on this sensitive issue and I respect your thoughts.

Gender Inequality in India

 I find most men, very hypocritical when they talk about women. I think that is an issue. It all stems from the fact that they think women are some other kind of beings. Many men around us believe that women are unnecessarily pampered.

They say that we keep screaming about, “Oh, it’s a man’s world, it’s a man’s world”, but the men are opening doors, men are pulling chairs, men are being made to give up their seats to women, so how is it a man’s world?

But, we need to realize that how every step of the way a woman is violated. Her rights, her dignity is violated, over and over, again, at the hands of men. It needs to dawn upon us, as to why women across the globe have been screaming doing a way with Gender Inequality.

Gender Inequality is very big problem in our country. Even though women have their quotas, they have everything in place, but still by the end of the day it’s the mentality that matters.

A household maid asked a celebrity if she wakes up and makes breakfast for her husband, because she might have thought that’s how the things might work.

She said, “No, I don’t.”

And the maid turned around and said, “You know, you’ve never been given a beating by your husband, that’s the problem.”

And when she said that, I realized that, very unfortunately, when her son marries and brings a woman home, she is going to be the one who is going to instigate her son to beat his wife. So, it’s going to be the mother who is going to be responsible for the other woman to be ill-treated at the hands of a man.

Generations now, a lot of gender inequality has gone unseen.

Even in my household, not just in mine, in almost every other household, our mothers cook and our fathers either don’t cook that often or don’t cook at all. And we see asking them for tea, lunch, dinner from our mothers. I say that instead of expecting tea from them, why can’t we go and surprise them with a tea. It is purely a matter of sensitivity. If you treat women as equal, you’ll get up and make a cup of tea for them, instead of expecting them to bring a cup of tea for you.

If the world actually gets flipped and I was a woman, I think I would get paranoid because I am constantly checked out, constantly layered at. I think it would start driving me completely crazy.

The safety issue of  women, you know the amount of rapes we have or at least the ones which are reported, now it’s been coming more and more in the limelight by becoming way more conscious of gender inequality there is.

We have less priority for women education, and not only that, we also have less women in the working and professional environment. I know that this is not an ideal world. Here I am talking about the female sex, who are at a slight disadvantage in times and a lot of it is manufactured by men.

You know gender inequality in our lives exists in such a way that we don’t even realize that it’s happening. Sometimes I find women also take so much for granted, like, “Oh, we are women, so we are not even going to get that.” They don’t even question it.

I can give a 100% guarantee that, yes, this kind of judgment and bias exists in our society and that many, many, many, many men out there will disagree with me on this, because they will say, “No, nothing of such kind takes place around us.” And there are a lot of deep-rooted misconceptions they have that just because they are in a city, in a cosmopolitan setup, such things don’t take place as much as they do in the rural parts of the country.

In our country people have issues in taking order from women. Big issues. And that is why women in powerful positions have to become more assertive than they ever have because otherwise nobody does anything, because women are achieving things, women are doing things with their lives, that women are successful, so much more successful that I find people feeling threatened. Men feel threatened.

Such men exist in our would that there is a sense of superiority and arrogance, especially in the corporate world, because for them it’s new that women are part of the corporate world, in our country. When there’s a woman who is presentable, well educated, independent, either she is considered to be like a slob or a bitch to get her job done, or she’s supposed to be…you know we have labels for women. You can be assertive without being aggressive also, but that labeling exists in such a deep seated way, almost as if a career woman is a bad thing.

I read and see men making all these casual jokes and remarks made about the periods all the time. I talked to my girlfriend about this and she said, “It’s really exhausting because it is a time and a cycle where you are going through a lot of physical exhaustion. It’s very difficult for men to understand, so I think if men have their period that would be nice. And second, wearing high heels and tight clothes and see what that feels like and have women staring at you and your crotch all day long.”

You know what’s the biggest problem in India today?

SEXISM

So, STOP HARASSING WOMEN. Give them equal opportunities to lead.

STOP VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN. STOP SEXUAL HARRASMENT OF WOMEN.

STOP KILLING THE GIRL CHILD.

No one understands subtlety. So tell them at their faces.

END SEXISM.

END GENDER DISCRIMINATION and

END GENDER PREJUDICE against all girls and all women, everywhere.

GENDER EQUALITY is GOAL 5, of United Nations Global Goals for Sustainable Development.

You know how we can change this situation?

GO TELL EVERYONE. DON’T WAIT ANYMORE.

TELL EVERYONE

 

About the Guest

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Divyam Kaushik is a Graphic Designer who is also the co- owner of Scribblers. He has written a novel named ‘Love Me Like You Do’ which is really appreciated. He has also contributed his stories in some of the anthologies and ‘Turning Point of Life’ and ‘Strings of Love’are one of them.

P.S. Also read my book review of ‘Love ME Like You Do’

http://reviewswithsur.blogspot.in/2015/12/love-me-like-you-do-by-divyam-kaushik.html

Guest Post by Sandeep Sharma

Hello Fellas, today I invite Sandeep Sharma for a guest post where he would share his journey of being an author. I hope you will relate to him as we all have gone through such a phase.

                               ~Surbhi Sareen

I want to start something

“I want to start something.”

“What?”

“I want to become a writer.”

“That’s good.”

“But how?”

I once had this conversation with my father. He gave me two brilliant advices. First was that before thinking to spend ‘money’ (in this case your dedication), spend ‘time’. His advice was actually to talk to some authors and have an insight of the industry. I tried a lot but no one actually helped me back then. The reason is still unknown. Will talk about the second advice in a while, before that I’ll tell you what I did wrong in the journey of becoming author.

After reading Sydney Sheldon’s ‘Are You Afraid Of Dark’ at the age of 15, my interest in reading grew up. I then picked ChetanBhagat’s ‘5 point someone not to do in IIT’. I picked this book as someone advised me to readthe same. I loved the book. The best part of the book was the flashback thing. I never could have imagined that a book could be so good that it will indulge me for 8 hours straight. Then I inclined towards Indian Authors and picked Kushwant Singh’s ‘A train to Pakistan’. This was my dad’s choice. It was fabulous but was not as entertaining as my previous reads (my personal view as I love different kind of genre and writing style). After reading these 3 novels, suddenly at the age of 18, I decided to write a book. It took me 4 months to complete the script of 38,000 words. I was extremely happy and then I started to take series of wrong decisions.

I decided to publish it through Notion Press. Back then, I had no idea about editing. I never thought that my English could become such a hindrance. I always thought that the story backs up the book and English and writing style is just a side-line. I was so excited to see the printed form of my work that I paid no attention over cover design and editing part. Within a month, my paperback dream got fulfilled. I was in college and was confident that everyone will surely buy and support the author. ‘The Author’, I still regret that day when I thought I have become an author.

I placed 100 books in the common area and invited teachers and students to see the ‘Mammoth’ thing that I have achieved and in short buy the books so that I can proudly shout that I sold out 100 copies within an hour.

Hour passed, a huge gathering came but the sales were just 2. That was the first realization of truth. If we compare this to present scenario, you’ll see 100’s or maybe thousands of ‘likes’ on your posts regarding the book release but the sales will be just 1 or 2%. Be ready to feel heart-broken as I was not. I cried that day a lot as I knew nothing what lies in the future; future was even darker. First professional review came for the book and the unexpected occurred. The reviewer tore the book apart in his review. ‘Young Author’ died that day.

Then begins the time of self-realization. Journey of going back to basics starts and then I realized the meaning of my father’s second advice. His advice was ‘before asking how, you should ask when?’ The basic idea of becoming an ‘Author’ is to know when to write a book. Before writing a book, read at least 100 books. (I read around 200 books before writing ‘Hey Dad! Meet my Mom’ and that paved the way of my ‘little’ success in the industry.) Study the writing style of your favourite author. Try to gulp down the small elements that authors deliberately put in their write ups and after doing this, you’ll surely have a story in your mind. Once you have the story ready; stop reading. STOP READING when you are writing. While writing the book, there will come sometime when you’ll feel demotivated, that is the time to read again. Simple, isn’t it.

Now as your book is ready. Wait. Re-read and hire a professional editor. Ask some of your friends to give honest opinion about the book. During this process, just relax. Don’t panic. Now when the publishing part starts, switch from ‘Author’ to ‘Salesman’.

That’s all for today; hope that this will help.

 

About the author

Author Pic.jpg

Sandeep Sharma (23), made his debut in the writing industry with ‘Hey Dad! Meet my mom’, the book which is still a hot topic of discussion amongst readers. He is currently working on his start-up venture named ‘Author Paradise’ that works for the benefit of Authors to provide them well-organized online & offline publicity. By education, he is a civil engineer who graduated from JSS Academy of Technical Education, Noida.

He is very passionate about writing and has been writing short stories for his personal blog since 6 years and they were published various times. He has also co-founded ‘The Author’s Blog’, a platform that tries to bridge the gap between authors and readers. He is an avid reader and loves to review books on his blog. He is a well-known reviewer in the literary world.

He can be contacted through:

E-Mail: [email protected]

Facebook: www.facebook.com/sandeeplochansharma