Mira Prabhu's Blog, page 69
April 19, 2015
Guest Post from Tim Baker
Happened to chance on Tim Baker’s neat blog post today…and was thinking how many years it took me to research my first novel on tantra in ancient India. Of course I used the often controversial material I found to create my own unique saga of adventure and enlightenment….but its amazing how much time and effort can go into writing a single authentic paragraph…now read what Tim has to say…
Originally posted on A Lover of Books:
���Eyewitness Blues��� is Tim Baker���s latest novel.�� He has written a guest post for my blog about research and how important it is.
Research
There���s nothing worse than spotting inaccuracies in a novel.
Suspension of disbelief aside, even fiction should be as factually accurate as possible���I mean if your character is being chased by a pack of time-traveling zombies riding flying monkeys, and he/she shoots ten of them dead with a Colt single-action revolver, I���m afraid I���d have to call that bullshit.
A simple Google inquiry will tell you that particular weapon only holds six rounds.
Research.
Every novelist should do his/her research because, as Genghis Khan said, ���You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.���
Actually, that quote belongs to Abraham Lincoln, but I���
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The Sunday Show – Defining Moments with Sue Vincent
Fascinating Sue Vincent, writer, poet and much more….interviewed here by the equally fascinating Sally Cronin. Here’s how honest Sue is about the incidents that shaped her into the woman she is today: “A violent marriage entered into far too young and a drunk driver rearranging my face had sapped me of what little self-confidence I had back then. Leaving England alone, barely twenty years old and completely untraveled was a big decision��� yet as the train drew close to Paris and the Sacr��-C��ur seemed to float like some ethereal palace in the twilight, I felt I had come home…” Read on…
Originally posted on Smorgasbord - Variety is the spice of life:
My multi-talented guest today exudes calm and passion in equal abundance and I was delighted when Sue Vincent accepted my invitation to share her Defining Moments. During my research I came across some incredible interviews packed with information so today I am going give you a brief introduction to Sue���s life and work and then focus on what she considers those key times that impacted the direction her life was taking at the time.
Sue���s life has not all been plain sailing and in fact there have been times when tragedy and life���s events have resulted in a complete rethink in both lifestyle and location. It is clear however that these events also according to Sue, changed her outlook for the better and that love and laughter thrived.
We often joke about the North/South divide in the UK but Sue has experienced that for herself. Having made the choice���
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April 16, 2015
Why am I dreaming of all the things I felt bad about in my life?
Steven Fox on why past conflicts emerge from your subconscious : It is all a grand plan to help acceptance of the inevitable…so relax and enjoy those dreams if you can.
Originally posted on Dreams: Guide to the Soul:
Remembering the Past Dreams
Dream 331: Easing the Pain
A woman had an elderly mother who had terminal brain cancer and was going through the process of dying. They were very close and her mother was emotionally dependent upon the dreamer. She was having many dreams per night that depicted every emotional situation she felt guilty about in her whole life. She wondered why she was having an onslaught of these dreams now.
Interpretation
Like everyone, the dreamer had a mother introject in her subconscious acquired from her experience as her mother���s child. It many times is the beginning basis of emotion. As her mother went through the process of passing, her subconscious was doing a life review of her emotions which was a way of helping her to cope with her mother���s illness. It was a process of helping her to stay emotionally whole while dealing with the expected���
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April 13, 2015
5 Ways to KILL a Perfectly Good Story
Writing a good story is a fine art…the dream cannot be broken, for that is what a gripping tale is, a beautiful dream we step into because we are mesmerized. Kristen Lamb tells us how easy it is to break this spell…
Originally posted on Kristen Lamb's Blog:
Over the weekend Hubby and I rested and watched movies and we took turns who could pick the film. Hubby loves dramas and war films. I prefer horror and space aliens. Anyway, Hubby chose the drama��Unbroken and that is three hours of my life I will never get back.
Halfway through the movie, I had Hubby pause to check out how much more of this film I would have to endure, and I���m pretty sure I was worse than sitting with a young kid in a dentist���s waiting room.
I���m BORED! *plays with spit*
Though the intentions behind making the movie were noble and the cinematography superb, the fictionalization fell flat. And, since I don���t like wasting my time, I figure we can at least look at what went wrong with the movie and use it as a cautionary tale and example of what not to do.
What bugs���
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April 6, 2015
Monday Funnies with Aunty Acid
“I’ve just burned 3000 calories – I forgot to take the pizza out of the oven…” Now that’s PURE Aunty Acid….go ahead, have a laugh, and thank you Chris Graham!
Originally posted on Chris The Story Reading Ape's Blog:
April 2, 2015
The Blazing Skyscraper: An Archetypal Moksha Dream
I loved my new apartment in Dharamsala: hardwood floors, a modern bathroom and kitchen, glass windows and a wraparound terrace from which I could contemplate the icy splendor of the ring of surrounding mountains. I’d just moved to this Himalayan town from the urban frenzy of Manhattan���minus a parachute as I often joked;��this��was my��fourth home in just over a year and finally I felt comfortable, at least in physical terms.
It helped that my Himachali landlords were fond of me���possibly because I’d loaned them enough to finish the construction of their building. (Later I discovered via a German friend who sublet my place that they were cheating me blind on electricity etcetera���but at least they cared enough to provide me with the little comforts required to live in such an austere environment. ���This is Kali Yuga, remember?��� I’d remind��myself when I felt cruelly buffeted by life. ���It could always be worse!���)
I’d vacated my previous apartment because a thief had stolen my precious Micron laptop���possibly the only one in Dharamsala��(this was way back in 2000).��With the laptop went years of my creative work stored on the hard drive as well as the only backup disk.
Even as I reeled with shock, a lama said to me that those who set their sights on moksha (enlightenment) enter the Spiritual Olympics���whereupon the opposition gets really stiff. A��seeker cannot afford to be a crybaby when the metaphorical shit hits the fan, he’d added.��One has to surrender to the forces of karma, take responsibility for all that one experiences, face every obstacle and carry on regardless���and it is only then that one evolves into a��spiritual warrior.
Yet life in the Himalayas continued to have its brutal aspects. As droves of spiritual tourists came and went, a handful of us ���foreigners��� stayed on and put up with seemingly insurmountable obstacles. Life was pretty good in spring and summer, but winter was beyond extreme���as if four feet of snowfall wasn���t bad enough, power lines went down, water pipes froze, clothes stayed wet for weeks and good food was near impossible to find since the stores shut down: all in all a continual nightmare for a woman comme moi��spoiled by��living for so long in the most exciting city on the planet.
When the weather got impossible, I’d run off to Thailand,��Manali or south India, returning to my apartment on Jogiwara Road when the weather changed. But the demons of discomfort became increasingly shrill and at one point they led me back to a nasty old vice.
One brilliant morning I hiked all the way up to Shiva���s Caf�� with a friend. Many westerners were already up there���painting, singing, stoning and meditating���and��the festivities��lasted right through the day. When I got home it was twilight; the Himalayas were spectacular with color and luminosity but my own head was in a daze: I felt torn between battling it out in this powerful space and running back to the Big Apple; I went to bed deeply troubled.
Then a dream erupted��out of my subconscious: I’m rustling up a meal in my apartment when I realize the building’s on fire. All of a sudden, I have��x-ray vision���I can��see into other apartments: children at a dining table with their mother bustling around; a slender��woman with hair tied up in a knot atop her skull luxuriating in a bubble bath; a couple tenderly making up after a disagreement���and so much more. The information comes to me in a solid stream and at lightning speed. Simultaneously I realize these people are so immersed in their mundane activities that they are��unaware of��the towering inferno they are encased within. What to do?��Escape and��save myself? Who are these people anyway? Not family nor friends���just co-inhabitants of a skyscraper located somewhere on Planet Earth.
The��Bodhisattva Vow I���d recently taken then flashes across my dreaming mind: it is a vow to become enlightened for the sake of all beings, distinguished from the selfish desire to free oneself of suffering. I dash��out of my apartment and start banging on doors, screaming that the building is on fire���but not a single person listens and some��won���t even bother to come out!
Meanwhile wicked orange and blue flames lick the sides of the building and my body feels��the��ferocious heat. I race��up the stairs to the��next floor where I meet the same fate. What��the hell��is wrong with these people? Can’t��they smell the smoke and see the curling flames? Finally I flee the building, sobbing wildly; when I look back, flames are rapidly consuming the building���and that is when I awake in my comfortable bed, trembling uncontrollably.
It���s a dream, I told myself���you can go back to sleep now. But instead of being soothed, I began to hyperventilate. Leaping out of bed, I��flung open the door to the terrace to take in gulps of freezing mountain air. After a long hot shower followed by a��steaming��cup of cocoa, I got back into bed and pulled my quilt over me���but still could not sleep.
Next morning, senses jangling, I hired a taxi to drive me down the mountain to the monastic residence of an English woman many were saying was enlightened. Ani-la had lived in a cave in the snow for close to thirteen years. I’d been impressed by her amazing aura and diamond-sharp clarity of mind. I related my dream/ nightmare to her. Ani-la nodded her shaven head. ���I had a similar dream a long time ago,��� she said, surprising me. ���Most who leave the mainstream world to seek enlightenment have it in one form or another.���
I stared at her, nonplussed: an archetypal dream heralding liberation? I harked back to my dream, thinking about all those people I’d tried to warn. Get out of this building right now or you will burn to death!��I had screamed.��Why would people be willing to die rather than to save themselves by facing a horrible reality? I asked her. She gazed at me with great compassion and said something like this. ���Only grace separates those who are willing to listen and those who can’t or won���t. Samsara is addictive���a prisoner yearns to break free of his chains because he can see and feel them���but what does one do with the invisible chains of desire and fear?���
Of course the oblivious people in my��dream represented that great majority of humans who choose to live out their lives without ever wanting to know who they are beneath the surface of body-mind-personal history. Maya the Cosmic Enchantress is so dazzling that they get lost in the fantastic movies she constantly spins.��Our personal��dream can take any form or shape���it can be one of wealth, fame and the adulation of millions; of abject poverty and suffering; and anything in between. In this dream we can play any role���from king to beggar, supermodel to leper, brilliant scientist to paranoid schizophrenic;��the possibilities Maya offers the hungry human mind are endless. It is by the grace of higher powers��that��some of us come to accept��Gautama Buddha���s evaluation of human life���that no matter how good our current role appears to be, eventually we must deal with the curses of old age, suffering and death.
As I keep moving along this narrow path of awakening, buffeted by all sorts of happenings, I realize everyone has their own time of awakening. To harangue or cajole others to join me on this path less traveled is a waste of time. At some point every human must realize for themselves that the��home,��family, career, looks and health they have invested in so heavily must come tumbling down. What is left when our spirit leaves our flesh? Nothing but the pure consciousness that is our true Self���and whose nature is immortal bliss.��And so the game���lila in Sanskrit, or the play of the gods���goes on���until each one of us realizes the house is burning. Once we do get out, the real story begins���and we are in for the adventure of our lives.
Today it is the Direct Path recommended by Ramana Maharshi��that brings me home to who I really am. As Ramana said, the blueprint of our path has already been drawn���and now, when I look back on that striking dream that came to me at the start of my own deeper journey, I see it as a harbinger of what is yet to come.
Greetings from sacred Arunachala, the mountain regarded as the manifestation of Shiva, pure consciousness, and whose vow is to destroy the human ego so that we can experience our Self���which is nothing less than existence-consciousness and bliss!
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April 1, 2015
Vogue Empower My Choice: What the criticism actually did to feminism
Sanjukta Basu’s post on this explosive, poignant and fascinating issue — of the renaissance of feminism in the modern Indian woman/psyche — makes me so happy I am sharing it with all of you. The video I had mixed feelings about — but I realize it is impossible to cover everything in less than 3 minutes. Something BIG is being addressed here and that’s where it all begins – by increasing awareness on a subject that most Indians want to shy clear off. Personally, in a world riddled with mediocrity and passivity, I exult when I meet another Indian woman who shares my fiery views…let Sanjukta know what you think of her post and FOLLOW her blog for more — and of course you can always write to me. Om!
Originally posted on This Is My Truth:
The Vogue��Empower video titled ���My Choice��� featuring Deepika Padukone and 99 other women, from different walks of life, has already taken way too much space than it deserved. And yet, I feel the need to defend it. Allow me to explain why.
My first reaction:
The video was released on Saturday and when I first saw someone sharing it, I didn���t even bother to open it, just like I don���t care to open so many other virals the public seem to love. But then as more people started sharing it, particularly my feminist progressive friends,��I thought ok lets see what it is all about. So I saw and thought it was just about nice, makes a few bold statements which can be appreciated except that they didn���t really have a large size woman,��even when the narrative went, ���To be a size zero or a size 15, my choice.���
My second���
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March 24, 2015
Series and Psychopaths—The Author Sadist & Why Audiences LOVE the Pain
My soon-to-be-published novel KRISHNA’S COUNSEL deals with an Indian psychopath…and here’s Kristen Lamb sharing about audiences love reading about them…
Originally posted on Kristen Lamb's Blog:
[image error] Mads Mikkelsen in ���Hannibal���
Hubby and I��are now careening through��Hannibal, which is some of the most amazing writing I���ve ever seen. I would have never believed any actor could even rival Anthony Hopkins��� portrayal of Dr. Hannibal Lecter, but���? Mads Mikkelsen might actually be��better.��I don���t know if I have ever felt so conflicted about a character. Hannibal is a stone-cold killer, but then I catch myself rooting for him?
Wait���no, he���s the BAD GUY. Right?
I���m so confused *head desk*
Yet, this series is such a prime example of why series are superlative storytelling. Instead of containing a character like Lecter to 90-120 minutes, we now have what no movie can offer���TIME. This allows for a layering, a depth, an exploration we always craved, even if we weren���t entirely aware of it at the time.
I find it harder to make snap judgements (like I do���
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March 22, 2015
Monday Funnies with Aunty Acid
Aunty Acid – you are SO cool…love you for making me laugh…and thank you always, Chris Graham!
Originally posted on Chris The Story Reading Ape's Blog:
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March 21, 2015
Interview with multi-talented author Sally Cronin
Sally Cronin is a marvelous and varied writer and blogger who mightily supports other indie writers…here she is interviewed by Christopher Fischer…
Originally posted on writerchristophfischer:
[image error] I recently happened to come across another great dog book,�����Sam, A Shaggy Dog Story��� by Sally Cronin and approached the author to come on the blog. Find my interview with her below. Here is a short review. ��
The book this wonderful story of a dog and his life with the author���s family, told from the dog���s perspective. It doesn���t get cuter than that, and as triple dog owner I enjoyed every minute of it.��
Cronin does a great job at getting into ���character��� and creating this original and lovely take at what that dog���s life might have been perceived in a humanised dog-brain.
Illustrated with pictures and full of lovely anecdotes this is a beautiful piece of art that will have dog owners in stitches and tears alike. It may be difficult to get it wrong with dog books, but this one is brilliant. Enjoy!
Here is the book���
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