Payal Dhar's Blog: Writer's Log, page 5

Book review: Come, before Evening Falls

Yesterday, at the Scholastic Writing Awards ceremony in Delhi, I ran into the author Manjul Bajaj. We were only introduced to the each other just as we were leaving, but we had a nice walk down the stairs talking about a mutual writer friend, Monideepa Sahu. Anyway, I digress…

Meeting Manjul reminded me of a book of hers that I liked very much and had reviewed, but in one of the design updates, it had got culled from the reviews section. So here it is again, a review of Manjul Bajaj’s Come, before Evening Falls, a haunting story of forbidden love, set in the Rohtak in British India. Though the story takes place in the early 20th century, what is terrifyingly disturbing is that, take the dates away, and it would ring just as true in the present day.

Click here for the full review

~PD

Book review: Asmara’s Summer

Is there anything more important to a teenager than her street cred? No, at least not for Asmara. So when her Canada plans are cancelled and instead she has to spend a month with her grandparents in the conservative and definitely un-posh part of town, it is instant social disaster.

So Asmara does the only thing that seems reasonable: she pretends to her friends that she is in Canada and settles down to turn up her nose at Tannery Road.

What happens next is something that takes her by surprise.

Read the full review

~PD

Introducing the Royal Blue workshops

There are exciting things afoot. Actually, one big exciting thing. A fellow author Devika Rangachari and I are starting writing workshops for big and little people in Delhi, under the banner Royal Blue. Find out more about us here.

The first Royal Blue workshop is taking place on 21 May 2016, a one-day creative writing session for children between the ages of 12 and 15. Aimed at young writers, this workshop will aim to show that writing can be fun and deeply satisfying, while teaching our young participants how to give shape to their ideas and voice to their characters.

Royal Blue intends to continue with its workshops after this first one, so if you have any suggestions or requests, do get in touch with us via my web form or write to royalblueworkshops at Gmail.

Meanwhile, if you know any youngsters in Delhi who want to flex their writing muscles, do ask them to register. But quickly, because seats are limited!

~PD

Lessons on turing 10

Ten years seems like an interminable period of time when you say it. Yet, the years between turning 30 and turning 40 seemed like a will o’ the wisp, slipping out of my grasp even before I felt I had a chance to get a good grip on them. Plenty happened of course, good, bad and ugly, but the most important development for me was that I became an author.

I made my first “book” when I was seven—painstakingly handwritten and illustrated, and stapled together, a gift for my grandparents—and somehow since then always knew that what I really wanted was to write books. It took more than twenty years to eventually write one, and finally, two days before I turned 30, I saw my name on the cover of a book (that I hadn’t put there). It still feels like yesterday.

And while I can now cringe at some of the stuff I’ve written—and had published—I’d have to admit, that it still feels good to see the spines lined up on my shelf. So, this seems like a good time to laugh about what I’d thought the life of an author would be like and contrast it with reality.

The writing life

What I thought: The ideas keep coming thick and fast, and life is a great big adventure writing one book after another.

Reality: Any author who tells you that writing isn’t hard work is lying; and anyone who thinks writing for teens and younger audiences is easy doesn’t know what they’re talking about. I do say that with a sense of perspective—of course, it’s not hard work in the sense of breaking stones at midday in 40-degrees heat to get your next meal. There are always more ideas fighting for space in your head than the ones that get written. And giving shape to them is always a painstaking process of putting one word in front of the other. All of this is made more difficult by the fact that, as Somerset Maugham once said, “There are three rules to writing fiction. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.” There are some wonderfully prolific authors out there—and I’m duly jealous of them at times—but the wisdom that you can’t measure yourself by someone else’s yardstick does come with time.

Making a living

What I thought: I will make a decent enough living from writing.

Reality: Yes, you can. If you’re J.K. Rowling. Most authors, and I believe this is true around the world, will encourage anyone aspiring to join their ranks to hang on to their day job or have a backup plan that brings in enough cash to cover essentials. It helps to have a rich significant other, though you’re probably too busy writing to find one. Overall, no, writing books for children is not a sustainable career choice; you do it because you like it and because you have other means of supporting yourself. Because, believe me, the starving author may be a romantic metaphor but it’s a horrible reality.

Publishers and editors

I’m too old to think this, but this is prevailing wisdom in certain circles: Traditional publishing is on its way out and self-publishing is the new order.

Reality: Technology has made it very easy to be your own publisher, but underestimate the importance of the traditional editorial process at your own risk. There are many self-published successes, but the vast majority comprises substandard books that have not had the benefit of a professional editor vetting them. You may not always agree with your editor—indeed, you shouldn’t agree all the time or else it doesn’t seem like either of is are doing much thinking—but they can be the voices of reason that knock your crazy idea into shape and make it palatable for its intended (and hopefully paying) audience. If you’re lucky—and I have been for the most part—you will worship your editor at times and other times you will want to strangle them, but that’s okay (as long as you don’t actually do it).

Walking into bookshops

What I thought: Every bookshop I walk into will have a shelf full of my works and that will make it all worthwhile.

Reality: Some of this is not really the fault of my overactive imagination, but has to do with the strange place that Indian children’s fiction occupies in the literary space, namely, that distribution is a nightmare. This makes homegrown books notoriously hard to find in bookshops. If you’re lucky, you might find one of your books lying disconsolately in one dusty corner on a shelf marked “Indian writing”. If you seek out the store manager and ask about stock, well, let’s say it won’t be good news. Online marketplaces have changed things a bit and, to be fair, things are in flux at the moment. Moreover, as young adult writers in English, we’re competing with world-renowned authors from the West, backed by generous (or at least more generous than ours) marketing budgets. That would be a whole new rant discussion, so let’s drop it for now.

Being an “established” author

What I thought: I don’t know!

Reality: Actually, does this even mean? Especially if your particular dream isn’t to be recognized on the streets or be mobbed for autographs? Most children’s authors in India are relatively unknown entities (except in publishing circles, where our favourite pastime is to meet over our choice of food and drink and talk about this). Another back-to-reality smack is to be aware of the fact that as a writer in English, our audience is extremely limited. (Add to this the fact that if you [oh, all right I] have a reluctance to go out and face your audience, you complicate matters even more.) But, as mentioned earlier, things are changing. Over the past few years, the range, quality and number of books has suddenly shot up, and there is much more visibility of books and their makers. Hopefully, in the near future, when I tell someone I write books for children, they won’t ask if that’s because I haven’t quite managed to write for adults.

~PD

Woes of a data-starved gamer

Finally, I have a new gaming laptop, one from the Asus Republic of Gamers series (Dell’s Alienware was what I really wanted, but the bank balance had the last word). In the one month that this monster has come into my life, you’d imagine that I’ve been immersed in games. Unfortunately, that has not been the case.

Ever since I discovered my love for gaming—which was about a decade and a half ago—I’ve coveted a gaming computer. In the beginning, such a magical device was priced way out of my wherewithal. Later on, the priorities of work life kicked in and mobility became much more important. When I finally discovered that I could have a work computer and a gaming computer, I found myself with one foot in almost-middle-age. Nevertheless, if there’s one thing advancing years help you realize, it’s that if you don’t do the things you want to now, you’ll soon find yourself occupied with trying to remember where you left your glasses and teeth.

Thus, my gaming laptop entered my life and the first thing I did, after setting it up and removing the crapware, was install Thief to get on with my unfinished game, in high settings this time. Meanwhile, one of my friends pulled off a terrific mind-reading feat and sent across a game I’d been eyeing for a while, Wolfenstein: New Order, but would definitely have been wishful thinking for my four-year-old Mac (running Bootcamp). Plus, in the past few months, I’ve been thinking of wiping out my gaming backlog, which includes games from the Mass Effect, Dragon Age and BioShock series, plus stuff like Deus Ex: Human Revolution and Portal 2, which I’m very close to finishing. Oh, and I do have an eye on Sims 4.

However, because gaming aquisition has gone almost exclusively cloud-based, I was suddenly faced with massive amounts of downloads. Wolfenstein: New Order is a 40 GB download; Deus Ex: HR needs a 7 GB update (!) after installation, as will most other games. Which brings me up against the almost crippling data limits at our disposal. My (unlimited) internet connection has a fair-use limit of 50 GB after which it drops to 1 Mbps. That, admittedly, isn’t all that awful, but it still encourages the wrath of other people who share your home! Of course, the third world isn’t the priority of the gaming industry, which is annoying and not difficult to see why rampant piracy exists. (Another reason for this is, of course, the existence of silly DRM policies, about which I’ve ranted here.) I have been tempted to go down the bootleg route, but haven’t so far even though it’s hard to ignore its convenience.

However, in the interests of keeping things legal, here’s hoping that Wolfenstein will be ready to play by the time I return from my travels, in early March. After that, it might be time to get Sims 4</> and set it to download for the next couple of months. But meanwhile, Thief draws to a close and I shall have to admit, it has been super playing with all the settings cranked up. You can even see the texture of skin on the back of Garrett’s hand…

That’s happiness, that is.

~PD

Guest review: Genkaku Picasso

Writeside.net is happy to present its first graphic novel review: Genkaku Picasso by Usamaru Furuya. This is a guest review by Shweta Vachani.

Genkaku Picasso is a manga, about two friends, Picasso and Chiaki. Picasso—or Hikari Hamura, to give him his full name—is an artist. After he and his friend are in a terrible accident, Picasso must use his gift to help people around him. Can a sketchbook and a 2B pencil save lives?

Read the full review here.

~PD

Review: Vikram and the Vampire

Remember the Vikram and Betal stories from back when you were a kid? If you grew up in India, the chances are you’ve heard time at some point or the other. I first heard them from my grandparents, but my most enduring memory of these stories is Sunday-afternoon TV series Vikram aur Betal. I was nine years old and can clearly remember watching the stories keenly, waiting for the Betal’s question at the end. They were all tricky, moral problems, but King Vikram always had the answer, which meant the Betal was free to fly back to his tree, screeching in glee.

Thus, it was with some interest that I approached Natasha Sharma’s Vikram and the Vampire, a new, humorous retelling of the stories for under-10s. The book is accompanied by some hilarious illustrations by Priya Kuriyan. My full review is at Goodreads.in.

~PD

A new year, a new plan

Fair warning: This is the mandatory birthday post, so run now if you must.

Of course, no two birthdys are the same, but this year is doubly memorable. For not only do I turn 40, which is sort of bittersweet by itself, but it’s also ten years of being an author, which certainly feels quite good. That includes seven books, plus a few ongoing works—not bad at all, is it?

It was on 22 (or was it 23rd?) January 2006 that A Shadow in Eternity was released (at the Jaipur Literary Festival, no less, at that time a small and modest affair). The very next year, it got a new lease of life when a Turkish translation called Maya: Sonsuzlukta Bir Gölge came about. Later on, the other two books in the series were also translated. And now, just last week, I got to know that the entire Turkish series is going to be reprinted. What a fantastic early birthday gift, right?

I’m not going to make a list this year, because I know what I want, and I’m going to try and do it without worrying about crossing things off a list. I want to stay a little insane this year. Not the tear-off-my-clothes-in-the-middle-the-street kind, but the kind that makes you take a leap of faith. The sort of insane that makes you step out of your comfort zone. Of course, I say this in the context of writing, a promise to myself to try something new and fun. (Also, as a promise to myself, there are no guarantees that it’s going to be fun for readers as well [or even that anything will even get published]).

And also a promise to see at least one of my many works-in-progress to a conclusion. Here’s a glimpse of just some of them (click for bigger image):

A few irons in the fire.

So goodbye thirties. You were great to me sometimes and not so great at others, but I survived, so I forgive you. Hello forties—I hear it’s a great place to be! We’ll see.

~PD

Review: Not Dead Enough

The year of reviews might be over, but (one hopes) the reviews will keep coming anyway. To start off the year, here’s Peter James’ third book in his Chief Inspector Grace series: Not Dead Enough.

It seems that Brian Bishiop, a successful businessman, has pulled off the impossible feat of being in two places at one time. His glamorous socialite wife has been found dead and he is at the top of the list of suspects. However, at the time of the murder, he was about 60 miles away, having dinner with a respectable member of society. DCI Grace and his team are baffled.

Read the full review

~PD

Hello 2016, bye 2015

Oh well, time for the traditional end-of-year/beginning-of-another post. A somewhat sheepish one, for 2015 was a year wasted. In all fairness, some of it was out of my control, but some definitely of my own making.

Here’s what my plan for the year was and how I fared:

Another 52 weeks of blogging. (Done!)
Start on Satin 2. (I thought about it many times. Does that count?)
Go swimming in the summer. (I went twice. :D)
Learn a language. (Um… I already know four…)
And, of course, try to finish Amazing Grace. (I didn’t finish it, but I made a decent amount of progress.)

And this wasn’t on the list, but there’s a new design ready for Writeside.net. Now I just have to code it…

The list for 2016 is:

Implement the new design for Writeside.net.
FINISH WRITING A BOOK! No, seriously, I’ve got four of them going right now.
Stay healthier than I managed in 2015 (shouldn’t be too difficult!).
Travel somewhere fun.
Work on the workshops (details later, if relevant).
Play more games.

Happy 2016 in case you’re reading this. May you read lots of wonderful books or write some yourself—and may other good things happen too.

~PD

(Graphics courtesy BSG Studio on all-free-download.com)