It’s something that every first time author has heard: ‘write what you know’. Write about places you’ve been to, people you’ve met, spent time with, understood, situations you’ve experienced. And for a first book, that’s great advice, particular when it comes to creating characters. Characters react in different ways to different situations and an understanding […]
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June 23, 2014 — 11
Uncertainty
A colleague at Indireads wrote a charming romantic novel with an explicit sex scene. The story could have been written by Shakespeare himself, but for one reader, the thought of sex before marriage between an Indian couple was all that blazed out at him. He left a vitriolic little review for the author along the […]
Read MoreApril 16, 2014 — 0
The Chocolate Book Tag
D. M. Cain, author of the upcoming The Pheonix Project, tagged me into the Chocolate Book Tag last week. Her own list of books by chocolate is a wonderful mix of old and new, and she’s got great taste in chocolate too! I’m really excited to be a part of this, but I have a […]
Read MoreMarch 19, 2014 — 1
Travelling to the Land of Butterflies
A few years earlier, a scandal ran through Karachi’s middle classes when several cyber cafés released videos of couples necking (and a lot more) in the small private booths of their establishments. The couples were unaware that they were being filmed and some of the videos were incredibly explicit. To the sensibilities of ordinary Pakistanis, […]
Read MoreMarch 16, 2014 — 8
My Writing Process Blog Tour
When I first joined the Twittersphere on Jan 20, 2014 (yes, I am that anal — I mark such dates in the calendar), one of the most welcoming and friendly voices I was found was dystopian novelist, D. M. Cain. She continues to be a source of great support to newbies and indie authors, so […]
Read MoreFebruary 16, 2014 — 0
White Space
In design, white space is your friend. I have spent hours trying to convince clients to let the design breathe, that less is more, that the ‘negative’ in negative space is a positive, a necessary component of good design. Effectively used, negative, or white space is as powerful as a bold word, a great graphic […]
Read MoreFebruary 10, 2014 — 1
How it All Began
A year and a half ago, Naheed Hassan of Indireads (Indirom back then) approached me to ask if I would be interested in writing a romance novella. She had this crazy idea that there needed to be better representation of South Asia in the popular fiction market (English language books, that is). Besides large populations […]
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