‘Just a steel-town girl on a Saturday night, lookin' for the fight of her life
In the real-time world no one sees her at all, they all say she's crazy’ Lyrics from the Maniac song by Michael Sembello. The lyrics perfectly fit the protagonist of Rightfully Wrong Wrongfully Right (releasing August 1st, preorder on July 22nd) – the quintessential vamp, Gayatri Dutta. In the previous books the readers saw her as jealous, revengeful, deceitful and just about every thing bad a person can be. Her only redeeming factor – her love for her ‘rakhi’ brother, Nikhil Chandel. Single handedly, she will fight a war for him, make nice with her nemesis just for him and even say the word she simply abhors, ‘sorry’. If that is what to takes to make Nikhil smile! In Rightfully Wrong Wrongfully Right, I have attempted to show what makes Gayatri Dutta tick. She is still manipulative and cold but the readers will get to know the, ‘why’ and ‘how’. And hopefully you all will come to like her as much as I have. Please don’t forget to comment. Like most of you like what I write (thank you), I LOVE to read and re-read your comments. So without further ado, I give you Gayatri and I give you Viraj. . . . Excerpt from the upcoming book: Viraj tugged the door open again. Gayatri flashed a smile at him and opened her mouth to speak but he stopped her short. ‘I don’t like talking. Find a room and stay there.’ He shut the door on her again. Asshole! Gayatri fisted her hands and retreated. I can do this! I am doing this! Bigger picture, please! Gayatri paused and peeped inside the first lab that she stumbled upon. The place was quiet except for a low hum of machines. Gayatri pushed the doors open and walked inside the lab. It was empty. ‘Does anyone else work here besides the mad scientist?’ She leaned against one of the steel racks. The door flew open behind her. With a big grin she turned to greet the person coming in. ‘Hi! I—’ she froze. It was the mad scientist with a bunch of papers in his hand. Viraj noticed Gayatri at the same time. A familiar irritation flashed in his eyes. ‘Not this room. Not my lab! Find another room!’ He spoke with cool authority. ‘I was just looking!’ Gayatri smoothed her ponytail trying to mask her nervousness. He had her in knots. Giving an indifferent shrug, Viraj walked past her. Gayatri got a whiff of his aftershave; it smelled clean and crisp, like water with a twist of lemon. At least he doesn’t stink like his manners! Gayatri stood there quiet and confused. A loose paper slipped from Viraj’s hand and landed on the floor. ‘You dropped some paper!’ Gayatri said, her voice friendly. ‘Ignore it. Like you, it is not going anywhere.’ Viraj pulled a portable stool and took a seat in front of an electronic panel fixed to a bigger panel. Gayatri gritted her teeth and grinned with the ferocity of a wild animal that could pounce any moment. Unknown to her, Viraj gave a similar smile except his was more like the wild animal that had pounced and won. ‘I’ll go and find a room. Thank you!’ Swiveling on her heel, Gayatri headed for the door. Something stopped her—her father’s face and the realization that two weeks ago she had physically fought for herself, and now she had to fight again but with her mind instead of hands. I have to win over Mr Madness. Maybe I could wear a beaker over my head and tattoo the periodic table on my arms! ‘If you are trying to open the door telepathically, let me be the first to tell you it is not working!’ Gayatri exhaled noisily. Scathing and sarcastic, what more could a woman ask for? Taking a few calming breaths, she slowly pivoted to face Viraj, specifically his back as he sat hunched fiddling with the panel in front of him. Writing is easy, but writing well enough to have someone publish your work, is painfully hard. And if it was easy, where’s the fun in that?
Till you don’t go through the grind of writing innumerable shitty drafts, misery ridden days of feeling your writing isn’t good enough even for pre-schoolers, profuse meltdowns cursing the minute the story idea took shape in your head , you can never fully enjoy being a published writer. Now that my debut book, ‘Right Fit Wrong Shoe’, has sold nearly 10,000 copies, and gone into third print run in its second month (two earlier ones sold out), I can look back at my journey, which officially began in October 2006, as a writer, objectively. Upon receiving so many queries from aspiring & wannabe writers, I decided to pen a few tips that were and still are, key to my own writing process - a journey that is ongoing and forever learning. Having no one, truly, to guide me, I figured these on my own. However, if I can help anyone to hone their writing skills, I shall rest in peace – at least for tonight. With Christmas being round the corner, I’m, also, trying to earn a few extra brownie points with the man in the red suit. So here they are:- Research - Detailed research is an integral part of any form of writing. And thanks to the internet, local library and bookstores, it is so damn easy nowadays. Few things to research and read up on – Similar Genres (don’t worry about anxiety of influence); Fiction or nonfiction style of writing; book markets; agents; publishers; factual events, if any, mentioned in your manuscript. Every form of writing requires research. DO NOT shy from this one. The more you read, the more you learn. The more you know, the more convincing your writing comes across. Even Fiction needs to seem real for the readers to believe or identify with. For e.g. How did Robert Ludlum get us gorging on his stories of retrograde amnesiac, Jason Bourne? How did Tom Clancy make Jack Ryan so heroic, so credible? One can feel a similar connection with Harry Potter or Edward Cullen who though clearly abnormal, are still so authentic because of the real factor in the author’s writing. Research is cardinal, in making your writing and characters credible to the readers. Edit, edit and re-edit – I cannot emphasize on the importance of numerous edits. Remember edits not only make the manuscript tighter, reveal some minute or major structural flaws, trim extra verbiage, but also make the finished work more appealing when submitted. Editors love scripts that require no extra work. Look at it this way; you are hastening the journey of your manuscript from the editor’s desk to the printing press. However, a break of one or two weeks, or a month, in between edits is recommended. Feedback – Here, I recommend two kinds:
You can get in touch with me through my website (duhh J), Facebook Author Page and Twitter. Wikipedi.org is source for some of the writers and characters mentioned this article What does money do? Give us choices! Options! Increase our purchasing power!
This translates to more shopping hours, in the malls or on the net. More time spent away doing things that we need to do like the extra twenty or five minutes at the gym, or give the kid a bubble bath that makes her ecstatic or cook something nice for whoever you want. Therefore, I would say the recession is a good thing. Suddenly the craziness is gone. Early bird specials at Best Buy are less and late night at chuckee cheese more. Nights @ movies less and days @ parks more. The long laboring hours poured over making the Christmas list is not going to be so long and ‘hair tearing’ this year. The writing is on the wall. Excess is bad. The excess in the housing market, the excesses in our own lives and the excesses in the name of fight for freedom. You know what is easier than spending more? Spending less! Guess what is easier than paying credit cards? Not accumulating any debt! So everyone with the teeny tiny dab of common sense between your ears (the only place u can find it), sit back, put your feet up and let the Burberry wallet stay forgotten behind the cushions. It is no longer uncool to be a Penny pincher or a tightwad. Scrooge is the new man is town for Santa is busy working four shifts in a three-shift day just to pay off the bills from his overzealous shopping. J So Peeps the times are such, that if you need Full buy Full not King. Abientot
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