Skip to main content

Meeting deadlines


 I take on the Baton of Blogchatter Ebook Carnival from Medha whose ebook 'The Last Seychelles Flame' is also part of the mix. About Medha's ebook: Adrija has all the qualities for a boy to reject her marriage proposal, and so her parents are worried about finding a groom for her. She moves to Mumbai to become the best fashion photographer and Cupid strikes.. or not.. Will she unite with her true love?  

I took up the Blogchatter E-book challenge for a few reasons chief among which was learning to meet deadlines when it comes to writing. I find it easy to meet deadlines where my profession (teaching) is concerned. While writing, on the other hand, I have been quite a dismal failure. There are two books that I have kept half-finished. Both of them are very important for me and yet I have not been able to find time for completing them. So I decided to give me this challenge: complete the A to Z posts, 26 of them in a month’s time. I succeeded. Of course, I kept the posts short unlike the chapters of the two books which are pretty long running into thousands of words. Nevertheless, completing the Blogchatter challenge gave a boost to my desire to complete the other two books: Autumn Shadows (memoirs) and Black Hole (novel).

The challenge taught me a few lessons about preparing an e-book. I didn’t seek professional help while I put the 26 posts from A to Z into the little book titled Life’s Magic. Lack of professional skills left the book without certain essentials including a cover (which came out as a separate entity!), table of contents and the introductory title page. Well, I’ll seek a little professional help next time J

In the meanwhile, I thank the Blogchatter team for all the fun they provided every now and then with some Twitter jobs and others including this post. I am obliged to them for making me write my first e-book meeting deadlines. I thank my friends and well-wishers who downloaded the booklet, read it and conveyed to me their appreciation.  Some of the messages that came from young readers excited me. That was the best part of this entire exercise.

I look forward to much greater writing. Autumn Shadows which began with these 50-odd words: Insects come to die in my living room. Every morning I sweep them into the dustpan from beneath the CFL bulb where they lie dead in a heap of atomic dark spots while Maggie prepares the morning’s red tea flavoured with a leaf or two of tulsi or mint picked freshly from our little kitchen garden. has already grown into more than 25,000 words in 12 chapters. The fertiliser for its growth has been provided by Blogchatter. 

I will get on with the writing. Writing is becoming me. Or I’m becoming writing.

 I pass on the Baton of Blogchatter Ebook Carnival to Surbhi whose ebook 'Ten Tales' is also part of the mix.

About Surbhi's ebook: Ten Tales is a collection of ten short stories for children aged 8 years and above. These stories are a mix of magic, mystery, thrill, suspense, happiness and excitement. They are sure to widen their imagination and give it a fresh perspective.  




Comments

  1. So happy and all the best, sir! You will sure be successful in all the endeavours you take up in writing. Happy writing!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you. You've been a part of this booklet of mine.

      Delete
  2. What a bliss! There is no better joy for me than this though you made me immerse in the same sort of joy several times earlier. I am reminded of Keats:

    "A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:
    Its lovliness increases; it will never
    Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
    A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
    Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing."

    The beauty of your writing will keep increasing.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Congrats for your maiden e-book!
    Best wishes!
    Though I took part in the last two challenges, I am yet to publish any e-books...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks, Dr Sabat. The publication was quite an easy affair and that's why I took it to the logical end.

      Delete
  4. That is really nice. A challenge, I am sure that is worth taking up. Looking forward to the e-book. Wish you the best.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you. I'll publish it only when I'm fully satisfied with it and that's why it's taking time. It will be a good book worthy or wide readership.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Yesterday

With students of Carmel Margaret, are you grieving / Over Goldengrove unleaving…? It was one of my first days in the eleventh class of Carmel Public School in Kerala, the last school of my teaching career. One girl, whose name was not Margaret, was in the class looking extremely melancholy. I had noticed her for a few days. I didn’t know how to put the matter over to her. I had already told the students that a smiling face was a rule in the English class. Since Margaret didn’t comply, I chose to drag Hopkins in. I replaced the name of Margaret with the girl’s actual name, however, when I quoted the lines. Margaret is a little girl in the Hopkins poem. Looking at autumn’s falling leaves, Margaret is saddened by the fact of life’s inevitable degeneration. The leaves have to turn yellow and eventually fall. And decay. The poet tells her that she has no choice but accept certain inevitabilities of life. Sorrow is our legacy, Margaret , I said to Margaret’s alter ego in my class. Let

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl

X the variable

X is the most versatile and hence a very precious entity in mathematics. Whenever there is an unknown quantity whose value has to be discovered, the mathematician begins with: Let the unknown quantity be x . This A2Z series presented a few personalities who played certain prominent roles in my life. They are not the only ones who touched my life, however. There are so many others, especially relatives, who left indelible marks on my psyche in many ways. I chose not to bring relatives into this series. Dealing with relatives is one of the most difficult jobs for me. I have failed in that task time and again. Miserably sometimes. When I think of relatives, O V Vijayan’s parable leaps to my mind. Father and little son are on a walk. “Be careful lest you fall,” father warns the boy. “What will happen if I fall?” The boy asks. The father’s answer is: “Relatives will laugh.” One of the harsh truths I have noticed as a teacher is that it is nearly impossible to teach your relatives – nephews

Zorba’s Wisdom

Zorba is the protagonist of Nikos Kazantzakis’s novel Zorba the Greek . I fell in love with Zorba the very first time I read the novel. That must have been in my late 20s. I read the novel again after many years. And again a few years ago. I loved listening to Zorba play his santuri . I danced with him on the Cretan beaches. I loved the devil inside Zorba. I called that devil Tomichan. Zorba tells us the story of a monk who lived on Mount Athos. Father Lavrentio. This monk believed that a devil named Hodja resided in him making him do all wrong things. Hodja wants to eat meet on Good Friday, Hodja wants to sleep with a woman, Hodja wants to kill the Abbot… The monk put the blame for all his evil thoughts and deeds on Hodja. “I’ve a kind of devil inside me, too, boss, and I call him Zorba!” Zorba says. I met my devil in Zorba. And I learnt to call it Tomichan. I was as passionate as Zorba was. I enjoyed life exuberantly. As much as I was allowed to, at least. The plain truth is

Everything is Politics

Politics begins to contaminate everything like an epidemic when ideology dies. Death of ideology is the most glaring fault line on the rock of present Indian democracy. Before the present regime took charge of the country, political parties were driven by certain underlying ideologies though corruption was on the rise from Indira Gandhi’s time onwards. Mahatma Gandhi’s ideology was rooted in nonviolence. Nothing could shake the Mahatma’s faith in that ideal. Nehru was a staunch secularist who longed to make India a nation of rational people who will reap the abundant benefits proffered by science and technology. Even the violent left parties had the ideal of socialism to guide them. The most heartless political theory of globalisation was driven by the ideology of wealth-creation for all. When there is no ideology whatever, politics of the foulest kind begins to corrode the very soul of the nation. And that is precisely what is happening to present India. Everything is politics