Tag: updates

First Online Writing Workshop

Categories Random2 Comments on First Online Writing Workshop

Hey guys, I know it’s been so long, but I swear I have decided to post more often now. That’s why rather than just posting on my social media I thought I’d come here and do a full post on this (you, get back in the groove.)

So as you might have observed, I have taken a couple of webinars in the last 3-4 months and then I finally decided to go ahead with launching my workshops online. Online workspace is a lot more comfortable for me as I do not like stepping outside the house and recently in these pandemic time people, especially in India, have become more receptive to the idea of online teaching. Therefore, after a quick chat with my publisher, who’s been behind me for writing a non-fit book on writing, I decided to take the plunge.

It took a full month to put together this amazing workshop (my first ever) – Fiction Writing Masterclass, in which I taught my students how to start writing a book and then make sure that they finish it. It was a great learning experience for me and I enjoyed it a lot. The response was incredible, so much that I had to split the workshop into 2 batches to not to overcrowd it.

Here are some pictures from both the days of the workshop:

The best part was that all my students were happy with the workshop and I was so thrilled to have gotten to know so many like minded people.

I have another workshop next month, so hopefully it’ll go as well as this one!

Thanks a lot for reading 🙂

Ciao ❤

3rd Edition Of Writing Manifesto Is Here!

Categories My Books, WritingLeave a Comment on 3rd Edition Of Writing Manifesto Is Here!

Hello dear readers, I have a brilliant news to share!

The 3rd edition of Writing Manifesto is here (and to be honest, it looks so good!) For those of you who haven’t been initiated – Writing Manifesto is a mini e-book full of writing inspiration for new writers. If you are just starting out then it would be a great boost for your moral and will definitely make you feel less ‘shitty’ about having to defend yourself as a writer.

When I started my writing journey, I remember coming across such a book and it helped me tremendously. I even printed out a page of it that had a couple of good lines and pinned it just above my writing desk. It made me feel like I wasn’t alone and that there is at least one person who ‘gets’ what I was going through. So it was a great boost for my confidence and it kept me going till I finished my first book! So then I decided to create something similar for my readers and audience too. So here it is!

And the best part is, it is completely free!

But in order to download it, you’ll have to subscribe to my Newsletter. Now don’t give me that look… I know how much everyone dreads spammy emails, and I hate it even more so as I receive hundreds of them in a week. So trust me I am NOT going to spam you. Tell you what, I send out Newsletters very infrequently, say 2-3 per year. That is only when I have something of importance or relevance to share. I am way past the stage of sending out monthly emails where writers fill up space with crappy talks and useless content. So no need to worry 🙂

And the process hardly take one minute!

So, what are you waiting for?

Subscribe to my Newsletter here:

By clicking submit, you agree to share your email address with the site owner and Mailchimp to receive emails from the site owner. Use the unsubscribe link in those emails to opt-out at any time.

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And enjoy the free e-book.

Don’t forget to let me know what you think about it or if it helped you in feeling motivated to write in any way. I would love to know what you thought about it 🙂

Thank you and have a safe week ahead!

NaNoWriMo 2019 – Update

Categories Writing11 Comments on NaNoWriMo 2019 – Update

Hello, guys (After a long, long time!) I am here to share a quick update about my 2019 NaNoWriMo progress. For this year’s I am aiming to complete the 7th draft of Sinister Town and so far, i.e., in 15 days, I have written 29,132 words. I am trying to finish this draft this month itself as this is going to be the final manuscript, more or less.

Here’s how my NaNo stats are looking and I’m happy with the progress so far but I hope that I can keep up with it:

So that’s about it. How about you? Are you participating in NaNoWriMo this year? What are your goals and how far along in your project(s) are you?

Worldwide Release of Deceived E-Book

Categories My Books, Writing25 Comments on Worldwide Release of Deceived E-Book

I’m so, so, so excited to announce the worldwide release of Deceived e-book on the Kindle Store. Now Deceived can be read and enjoyed by people all around the world! This makes me so happy and grateful.⁣⁣⁣

If you haven’t already have it, grab your copies today!⁣⁣⁣

Deceived

You can get your copies of my book, Deceived, here:

Amazon (avaialble in India only): https://www.instagram.com/p/BSTpM3UAHk7/?igshid=vv73l9szd61s&fbclid=IwAR2_8RGudWBFe70PTtAC9S0iBNX2QezbIUaRnG8hFwQTfo5oqLWvzKCY1a4 

Amazon Kindle Store (avaialable internationally): https://www.amazon.in/gp/product/8193344901?pf_rd_p=649eac15-05ce-45c0-86ac-3e413b8ba3d4&pf_rd_r=V53C425J3EE582RJQTB8&fbclid=IwAR3-hdrwRfRPoxwleKjyhdri0smhcGhCDJVwCTM5KonfTSGkQ_iDxwFG0yo


I’d like to thank Citrus Publishers for fulfilling my lifelong dream of being a published author! It means so much to me to be able to live the life I have always dreamt of as a dreamy little girl 🤗🥰⁣⁣⁣
⁣⁣⁣
And I’d like to thank Vishal for his relentless support, immense love and irrevocable belief in me. He was the only one who believed in me when even I doubted myself ❤💕⁣⁣

And lastly, thanks to all my readers, social media friends and followers for all your love and support ❤

Monthly Updates: May 2019

Categories Random8 Comments on Monthly Updates: May 2019

Hello guys and welcome to my Monthly Updates post series. The month of May wasn’t the best month I’ve had so far in the year because Vishal got sick and was bed-ridden for the most part of the month. He’s still not well, but his recovery is steady and hopefully he’ll completely recover in another week or so.

Here’s what I managed to do the time that I was able to scrape out from the hectic schedule I had this month:

Writing:

  • I have finished revising all the old drafts of Sinister Town and plan on working on the next draft, which will be the final one, in the month of June.
  • I am in talks with a literary agent who seems interested in two of my manuscripts and has suggested some major changes for them – Sinister Town and Alone In The Dark, so I’ll be making those changes to my books in June

Reading:

Out of these Doctor Izard and Armadale were audiobooks from Librivox. Rest were Kindle ebooks.

Movies Watched:

  • Apostle – Netflix
  • Sabrina (Indonesian) – Netflix
  • The Doll (Indonesian) – Netflix
  • The Doll #2 (Indonesian)- Netflix
  • Veronica (Spanish)- Netflix
  • Deadpool #2 – TV
  • Thor Ragnarok – TV
  • The First Great Train Robbery – TV
  • John Wick 3 – Theatre

IGTV Videos:

 

So this was how my month went by. Do share about what you’ve been upto in the month of May and your plans for June.

See you all next month with hopefully more posts.

Ciao ❤

 

Monthly Updates: April’19

Categories Random6 Comments on Monthly Updates: April’19

Hello, dear readers. I missed March Monthly Updates post but didn’t want to miss April as well, therefore, I thought that even though I am a bit late I’ll go ahead and do a quick update post.

Writing:

  • I participated in Camp NaNo with a target of 30K words, but all I managed to write were 20K words. Though I did manage to revise a couple of thousand words, around 8K so overall I’m still happy with my progress.
  • I am working on 3 books simultaneously so at times it gets hard to track the progress individually, though I’m making steady progress with 2 of the 3 works and the 3rd one is coming along slowly as it is in its early stages.

Reading:

  1. Lost Man’s Lane (Miss Butterworth #2, Mr Gryce #by Anna Katherine Green – 5/5
  2. Kill Code by Clive Fleury – 4/5
  3. We Call It Monster by Lachlan Walter – 4/5
  4. Aristophania (The Kingdom of Azur #1) by Xavier Dorison – 3/5
  5. The Magicians: Alice’s Story by Lilah Sturges – 1/5 – DNF
  6. Hotel Dare by Terry Blass – 4/5
  7. A Promise Of Return by Rebecca Crunden – 4/5
  8. A Dance Of Lies by Rebecca Crunden – 4/5
  9. Shatter Me (Shatter Me #1) by Tehereh Mafi – 3/5
  10. The Circular Study (Miss Butterworth #3, Mr Gryce #10) – 4/5

Out of these Lost Man’s Lane and The Circular Studies were free audiobooks from Librivox and Shatter Me was a paperback. Rest of them were all ebooks.

Miscellaneous:

  • I joined the swimming classes. I bunked a lot but still, now I know how to float and release bubbles. I will be taking a break this month from swimming as the chlorine is affecting my sinuses and I am getting one-sided headaches again. But I will be resuming in June.
  • I joined Multifit right at the end of the month and began functional training. It is exhausting, to say the least, but totally worth it!
  • In new releases, I watched Avengers: Endgame, The Curse Of The Weeping Woman and Pet Sematary.
  • In old movies, I re-watched Wall-E (twice in April cause I love, love, love that movie), The Magnificient Seven (the old one), Apollo 13, KGF, and a couple more that I am forgetting now.
  • On Netflix, I watched Black Mirror S1 & S4 and started watching Hemlock Grove.
  • And obviously, I watched all the episodes of Game Of Thrones S8 on HotStar. I feel that the makers have totally ruined the characters and the plot that GRRM worked so hard to create. TV series can never do justice tot he books, still, the show was going pretty good till S6, but from S7, essentially the part where the show left the books behind, everything feels rushed and incomplete and… off. GRRM anyway hasn’t given away the original ending so the books are anyway not spoiled. Now I’m eagerly waiting for the TV series to be over and the books to come out soon!!
  • I created my IGTV Channel! You can follow it through my IG profile: @CrazyCatWriter.
  • And here is my first video as posted on YouTube:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMup8ExsejU
  • And here is the second one:

That’s about all I can remember from April (it’s been almost half a month since April ended so it’s hard to remember), but I’m sure I covered all the main things I did. I hope you all had a fabulous April as well. May is getting hotter in India, and hopefully this year the rains will come sooner than usual. Do share about how your Camp Nano went and what you’ve been up to last month.

Thanks for reading!

Ciao ❤

Monthly Updates: February’19

Categories Random6 Comments on Monthly Updates: February’19

And finally, I’m doing the monthly Updates post after a long, long time. I loved doing these posts before and I’m really excited to do it now. To be honest, these update posts help me in knowing exactly where I stand in terms of my writing and helps me plan ahead serving as the much-needed motivation.

February was a good month for me, not only as compared to January’19 but also as compared to all the months in the last year. I did have some good writing days last year, especially in the second half where I edited a lot and wrote a considerable number of words, but my muse only came in bursts of 5-7 days at a time and then faded away for good. But this February, I not only wrote consistently but was also able to work on posts for my blogs. This makes me feel like I’ve finally reached the headspace I wanted to be in order to complete the projects I’ve been working on for a while now.

Health-wise, it was a good month for me. I even started visiting with my dietician again and slowly getting back into my morning walk routine. Though Eva, my 1.5-year-old cat, got a liver infection probably because of the cat tree we got in January (it happened due to some chemical and we cannot think of anything else as the source.) She had to undergo a very extensive IV therapy which lasted more than a week. 4-5 days into the treatment and the poor girl started running away and hiding from Vishal and me whenever we tried to get close to her in the evenings thinking we might put her in the crate and take her to the vet. She continued doing this even after her treatment was over for around 1 full week. It was disheartening and I’m just glad that now we all are back to our merry old selves.

Anyhow, moving on here’s what I was able to do this month:

Writing Updates:

  • Wrote around 10K words, not counting the scenes I wrote while plotting my projects
  • Plotted and planned the contemporary fiction novel I started working on last year. I call it the Unnamed Project (UP.)
  • Got a new story idea, a really good one! It’s more on the lines of slasher fiction – pure, mind-numbing gory fest. I have already written 8 chapters for it, which is big for me because it has been a long time since I wrote with such fierceness.
  • Learned new ways of plotting and story structures and will try and implement these in March for the projects listed above.
  • I didn’t work on Sinister Town this month as I was trying to distance myself from it in order to figure out an issue I’ facing with one of the characters and it seems like I’ve figured out what the issue is so distancing myself from it paid off. I’m planning to work on Sinister Town in March.

Reading Updates:

  • Read 2 very disappointing reads: Stillwater Girls by Minka Kent and The Nightmare by Lars Kepler. I had big expectations from both these books: Stillwater Girls had a great blurb (because of which I requested it off NetGalley) and The Nightmare is the sequel to Hypnotist, a book I fell in love with. But both turned out to be very dissatisfying reads and I had to mark them as DNF reads, much to my dismay.
  • Read 4 decent reads by the authors I know: The Afterlives Of Doctor Gachet by Sam Meekings, Treading The Uneven Road by L.M. Brown, The Memory Tree by John A. Heldt and The Curse Of Time by M.J. Mallon. I’ve reviewed all these books on my book blog, The Reading Bud, so do check out my reviews there.
  • Apart from these, I read a book that completely changed the definition of Classics and Cosy Mysteries for me – The Leavenworth Case by Anna Katherine Greene. My very good friend and co-moderator of RMFAO, Dagny, introduced me to this author and after reading her book and biography, I’m totally blown away by the fact that I never heard of her before and that she is so underappreciated. I’m presently reading another one of her books, That Affair Next Door, and it even better than the one I read for Feb.
  • Overall, I read 7 books this month. Out of these, 3 were for RMFAO 2019 Genre Challenge‘s Mystery-Thriller month.

Movies & Series:

  • 8 episodes of the 6th season of Orange Is The New Black. It was good as usual.
  • Cargo on Netflix. Not good at all. They totally ruined a potentially good concept.
  • Tidying Up with Mari Kondo on Netflix. It was kind of a life-changing event and I will be doing a blog post soon on how I’ve adapted the Kon Mari method in my life and home.
  • In new releases, watched Gully Boy and Uri – two of the best movies till date in Bollywood.

Apart from this, I hosted a lot of guests (well, the same guests over and over a couple of times) and was busy in taking care of Eva. So the month went by in a flash. I’m just glad that I was able to get some writing done.

Hope February treated you all well. I’d love to know how you spent your month and what progress you made in your writing, reading and other aspects of life. Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments below.

Ciao ❤

Getting Back In The Groove

Categories Personal, Random6 Comments on Getting Back In The Groove

Finally, after almost 1 and a half years, since Eva’s arrival and the start of my health issues (both unrelated, of course), I am feeling like myself again. After such a long break, I have also started re-working on my 2nd novel, Sinister Town, with the kind of energy I always seemed to have before things started to get sour in regards to my health. Lately, I’ve even started with my fitness regime again, though that is coming along a bit slowly. But I’m in a kind of a happy place now where I am doing all the things that I love doing and I am not sick nor coughing my lungs out the entire time.

Though my medical tests are still pending, I’m positive whatever it was is long past and now all that remains is for me to conquer the world again (see, that’s how good I’m feeling.) And it’s not that I’m just feeling good now, or this week. This has been the case from last two month since I’ve recovered from my last allergy bout. And that is the reason why I’ve been able to blog again to my heart’s content in the last few days – I’m not only blogging on The Reading Bud and this blog, but I’ve also taken up cooking occasionally again and have started posting on The Baking Bud too.

Eva in our backyard

I guess my last sickness bout made me very appreciative of the life I have; my loving, caring and such a devout husband and my crazily adorable and loving cats, Eva and Katie, and also the ever-goofy and always smiling Max. With so much love around me, I guess I’ve not only bounced back to being well but that I’ve been able to come back in a much better frame of mind.

Katie lazing around

For now, my focus is solely on getting Sinister Town ready for my alpha and beta readers and then polishing the dark short story collection I’ve been meaning to work on for some time. I’m also trying to read more and incorporate cooking regularly, more and more, into my daily schedule.

I’ll try and post here more (at least once a week) even if just a life update kind of a post as I hate not being in touch with blogging here. I’ll also try and visit all my favourite blogs more often (haven’t done it in so long that I’ve almost forgotten how great it feels to read everyone’s posts.)

Ciao ❤

Camp NaNoWriMo April’18

Categories Writing3 Comments on Camp NaNoWriMo April’18

Hello world, I’m back from yet another break!

Like every year since 2014, I’m participating in Camp NaNoWriMo April’18. For this month I don’t have a lot planned out, but just a basic idea of what needs to be done. I’m mainly going to go for 2 things this time – sorting out the ending of Sinister Town and writing the first draft of a story I’d started as a short series flash-fiction, Jessie.

Over the last couple of months, I’d have some really good, strange, outright hilarious and some really amazeballs story ideas and, strangely enough, I wrote them all down. I never really write down random story ideas anymore, I used to write them down very carefully when I started out as a writer, but after I heard the invincible, and my writing idol, SK mention in one of his many speeches, that if you can’t remember an idea for a year (or basically a long time) then it’s not worth

working on. That was the point where I abandoned scribbling down ideas and, now that I reflect on it, maybe that was one of the reasons for my major writer’s block. Anyway, so I’d been writing down random ideas, mostly because I’d been in a writing slump lately (for like a year and a half now) and so I just wanted something different to write about – something random that would help me in ‘pantsing.’

So I have those story ideas to develop too. One of them is a dark elf story and I can already feel it coming together beautifully as a full-length novel. So I hope I have enough things to write and meet my goal of 50K words as I really need to get back into my usual flow of writing, something that I dearly miss!

I wish all of you who are participating in Camp Nano April all the very best!

Ciao ❤

TRB On WordPress.ORG

Categories Random4 Comments on TRB On WordPress.ORG

I’ve been meaning to redesign The Reading Bud – TRB, for a long time now. Ever since I laid eyes on the Tweak Me theme by NoseGrace 2 years back, I knew I HAD to get it. And finally, I did. It was a huge step as a blogger because shifting platforms is never easy especially if you have a lot of content. I had over 200 posts (mainly reviews) and it was important that it was done right.

It took a lot of research, some serious brain digging and tons of hours poured over tutorials and posts by other really awesome bloggers and finally, I was able to do it – all on my own! TRB website is now live and you can visit it here: http://www.thereadingbud.com

TRB’s new logo

I’ve also redesigned the logo and header and now I feel like TRB is completely settled.

I hope you guys like the new design and the interface of the website.

Ciao ❤

Quick Updates – #amwriting

Categories Random18 Comments on Quick Updates – #amwriting

I had planned for 2 short stories and 1 article on Writing to post in through April and May, but unfortunately, things got in the way (as they usually do) and I completely forgot about the drafts (some half-baked some ready to go up) sitting patiently on my dashboard. I thought I’ll get back to blogging regularly now by scheduling the posts – like I do with my reviews at The Reading Bud, but before that, I wanted to drop by and post updates about what’s been since 8th April, the last time I posted.

Updates –

Books:

  • Deceived has been entered for the Hindu Literary Prize 2017. Hindu is one of the top newspapers in India.
  • Deceived is being translated into Marathi (a regional language of Maharashtra, the State I live in.)
  • The English release of Deceived is set for 24th June and it might be a soft launch by the looks of it because we want to do a big launch cum release with at least 2 languages so most probably, that’ll be sometime in July as the translated Marathi version will be ready by then.
  • Deceived has crossed 66 ratings on Goodreads.
  • Deceived is now listed on Amazon.in (Amazon.com and other Amazons will still take another week or so.)
  • Book reviewers are loving Deceived and I’ve already made a few fans.
  • Sinister Town is going slow and steady and should be ready by the end of this year.

Work:

  • I have 3 Novel Critiques lined up for the coming days and I’m already booked until the 20th of July.
  • I have 1 editing lined up for the month of July so the rest of the July is also packed.
  • I’m working on 2 other projects for Citrus Publishers, mostly marketing and HR related.

Reading:

  • I suffered a reading slump in late March, hence wasn’t able to read much for the last two months. These are the only books I read since April: Under The Dome by Stephen King, Hannah’s Moon by John A. Heldt, Girl In Pieces by Kathleen Glasgow, Gerald’s Game by Stephen King, A Fatal Twist by Tracy Weber, The Shadow Over Innsmouth by H.P. Lovecraft, Something Needs Bleeding by Thomas Singer and Christopher Long, Writing Down The Bones by Natalie Goldberg, The Bronx Kill by Philip Cioffari and The Turn Of The Screw by Henry James
  • I have to read another 6 books by Grand Central Publishing, 2 by MM Publicity and 3 by EG Publicity for review. Other than these I have about 8 NetGalley books that I want to read ASAP and another 10 that I’ve bought. So I’ll be busy finishing these books in the coming weeks and months.

Personal:

  • We had an awesome holiday in mid-April in Goa. Lots of sunbathing and booze.
  • We’re shifting to a bigger house – a row-bungalow on 1st June. And now I can finally get my pets.
  • We’re planning a trip to Thailand in August.
  • Right after the vacation, we’ll start our hunt for the perfect kitten and GSD pup!
  • I developed a bad rash on my arms and later found out that I am allergic to UV rays. The rash was due to extreme sunbathing in Goa last month. So I’m just trying to stay away from the direct sunlight as much as possible. 😦

Right now I’m busy with the shifting, readying the house for the Packers and Movers, so I’ll be seeing you guys next week. Stay tuned to my Twitter as I’ll be sharing the new bungalow’s pics there.

Do let me know how you spent your month. I’d be more than happy to know what you’ve been up to!

Ciao ❤

A Pleasant Surprise – My New Business Cards

Categories Random16 Comments on A Pleasant Surprise – My New Business Cards

Last week was busy, to say the least, I went to my mom’s place as Vishal had some work with my step and so spent some really good time with my mom and brother. I also made a few changes to my website – Added ‘Upcoming Titles’ and ‘Praise’ sections to the Home page, added ‘Praise’ page to the menu, along with adding my short bio and book image to the sidebar, and I must say that I’m happy with those things because now if someone comes directly to my Blog page (which happens a lot) they can get a glimpse of me (and who I am and what I do.)

And this week, I got these beauties (my Ig, T, and Fb followers might already know):

Aren’t they pretty! I love them and everyone at Citrus is so giddy with relief that the designing and branding work is over now. We all can just take a step back now, admire our hard work and move forward with the tiresome things of sending ARCs to reviewers and doing the other media pre-promotions.

I’m so glad to be working with people who value talent over age and experience and as I tweeted today morning, “I’m in a very happy place in my life right now! And I intend to keep it this way.”

So that’s all for today. Oh BTW, see what my publicist did this week:

Hope you all are having a nice week.

Ciao.

First Sample Copy Of Deceived

Categories My Books, News21 Comments on First Sample Copy Of Deceived

Hello, all. This is a late post, so please forgive, but life’s been extremely busy (particularly this month.) Being the Editor In Cheif at Citrus, I was fortunate enough to get my hands on the first sample copy of Deceived.

This is a late post, so please forgive, but life’s been extremely busy (particularly this month.) Being the Editor In Cheif at Citrus, I was fortunate enough to get my hands on the first sample copy of Deceived.

The cover came out a bit dark in the sample, so the covers are getting reprinted at the moment and most probably we’ll have the first batch of ARCs delivered to the office by next weekend!

Anyway, here are a few pictures [I loved it even with a slightly dark cover and spent an entire day holding this baby]:

On a side note, as my responsibilities have increased at Citrus and as I’m writing the second draft of my second novel, I’ve decided to take a break from podcasting for a few months. So the podcast that I was preparing for this month won’t be going up anytime soon (it really takes a lot of time!)

Though, I’ll try and share flash fiction twice a month as an additional writing exercise.

I hope you guys liked the book’s sample. Please feel free to share your thoughts below. Comments are always welcome!

Ciao ❤

Month End Updates: February’17

Categories News, Random15 Comments on Month End Updates: February’17

Hello, everyone. This is a monthly post in which I share about my writing, reading and life in general.

My month in:

WRITING–

  • I wrote 31,225 words for Sinister Town’s 2nd draft.
  • I planned and outlined the entire book again and now have a clearer and a much better understanding of the plot. Made some major changes and rewrote a few bits.
  • I also wrote a short story and two of the previously written. I’ll be posting them on the blog in March.
  • I prepared my next podcast and the post too. It’s on Second Drafts, which will be a kind of sequel to my earlier podcast – All About First Drafts. It’s 90% done so it should be out by the later half of March.

READING–

  • Nika: A Seychatka Novella by D.H. Gibbs – 4/5
  • The Little Yarmouth Abduction by Tim Van Minton – 5/5
  • Sting by Sandra Brown – 1/5
  • The Monster Of Florence by Douglas Preston – 5/5
  • Fool Me Once by Harlan Coben – 3/5
  • The Man You Scripted by Calvin Honors – 4/5
  • Amber Alert by Dan Lawton – 4/5
  • The House Of Secrets by Brad Meltzer – 4/5

Series:

  • A Series Of Unfortunate Events – NPH is beyond awesome and I absolutely adore the cast of the kids. They are all so perfect for their roles. If you haven’t yet watched it, then do it right now! You wouldn’t want to miss out on this epic series.eine-reihe-betrueblicher-ereignisse-s1_3569
  • Sherlock Holmes – Finally(!!) I started with this series! I haven’t yet finished even a single season because Vishal made me wait for him to get the Thunderbird connector for my Mac so that we both can watch it on TV. So far I’ve just watched 4 episodes and I love them.

Movies:

On TV:

  • Saving Mr. Banks
  • Julie And Julia
  • 30 Days Of Night
  • The BFG
  • The Notebook

In theatre:

  • Resident Evil – Last Chapter
  • Hidden Figures
  • Lego Batman
  • John Wick – Chapter 2

Miscellaneous:

  • I’ve been appointed as the Editor In Chief at Citrus Publishers.
  • I hosted my first International Giveaway for Deceived. It was an exclusive subscriber giveaway, i.e., only for my Newsletter Subscribers. And the winner of the Giveaway was – Andrew (my very good Goodreads friend) – Congratulations!
  • Seeing a great increase in number of new subscribers in the month of February, I decided to giveaway an e-book of Deceived to a random winner and the winner was – Diwya – Congratulations!
  • Seeing such a heart warming response to my giveaway, I’ve planned to host one next month again, but this time it’ll be open for everyone and not just my subscribers. I’ll try to set up a Rafflecopter one so that it’ll be easy to keep scores and such. So stay tuned!
  • Also, this month I also hosted my very first Facebook Live Author Event powered by Mystery Thriller Week (MTW) 2017. I wasn’t expecting anyone to come and attend the event at the designated hour as I got late in making the announcements and inviting everyone. Also my time zones are different than my friends overseas, so I thought that it’ll be a huge barrier. BUT to my pleasant surprise, a lot of MTW members and my Fb friends showed up for the event. It all made me feel so grateful to be surrounded by such amazing friends!
    Next time I’ll make sure to invite each every one of you all in time.
  • Also, I won an award at the MTW – Instagram VIP!
    16864107_10212567619644693_387844269653130429_n
  • Also, near the very end of the month, Deceived got ranked #199 (as of today, it will keep on jumping up with each and every vote) out of around 700 books on Goodreads’ Most Anticipated Thriller Of The Month.
    If you guys have a minute, then please visit here and vote for Deceived to help me it get ann even better ranking! Each and every vote is greatly appreciated!

What about you? How was your month? What all books did you read this month? Did you meet your writing goals?
Did you watch any of the latest releases this month?? Please share about your month in the comments section below. I’m all EARS!

In order to stay updated and get exclusive sneak peaks, subscribe to my monthly Newsletter – SUBSCRIBE

Ciao ❤

My First Facebook Live Author Event

Categories Events, My Books14 Comments on My First Facebook Live Author Event

Today I’ll be hosting my first live Facebook Discussion session for Mystery Thriller Week. It’ll run from 7:30 pm – 8:30 pm, today evening as per IST (Tuesday, 21st Feb, 9am-10am as per EST). If you wish to know more about my upcoming release, Deceived, or my next novel, Sinister Town, or if you love Mystery & Thriller genre then do drop by to sayhello and have fun discussions about mystery/thriller books and movies.

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If you wish to know more or have any questions, feel free to comment below.

Here’s the link to the Event: Power Hour Host – Heena Rathore P.

 

Ciao!

Mystery Thriller Week (MTW) 2017

Categories Random16 Comments on Mystery Thriller Week (MTW) 2017

In late 2016 I was lucky enough to be contacted by Vicky Goodwin, one of the organizers of Mystery Thriller Week, the biggest event of the Genre, to check out this awesome event. When I did, I was sold and the very next day I signed up there as an Author.

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There are so many writers, authors, bloggers, reviewers, readers, writing mentors, etc. participating in this genre that it’d be a crime for a Mystery lover to not be a part of this online event. I wanted to do a post on this earlier, but due to time restraints, I wasn’t able to (I just hope that it’s not too late for new participants to join in.)

If you love Mystery (of any kind) then do visit Mystery Thriller Week’s Website and join in! There are so many amazing books that are offered for reviewing that I’m sure all the bloggers and reviewers will have a blast (Ofcourse, Deceived is also one of them, so don’t forget to check it out! To know more about the event check out their About page.

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I’ve even booked a slot for their Facebook Author Chat Session on 21st February (Tuesday) 9 AM to 10 AM (EST.) Don’t forget to drop by, especially if you’re reviewing Deceived in the coming months.

Hope you guys are having a great week.

Ciao ❤

Updates!

Categories Random11 Comments on Updates!

Hello everyone,

I’m so sorry that I’ve been missing entirely from here for almost a month now. It’s been a crazy, crazy month and I’ve been literally running around in 100 different directions.

Anyway, I’d like to start by saying THANK YOU to everyone for the heart-warming comments, congratulations, reblogs and shares, re-shares, tweets, and re-tweets. It really means a lot to me! We’ve received a tremendously positive response from readers around the world regarding Deceived and it makes me really happy (and also terrified) to see so many people vouching for the book! Thank you, everyone!

We are done with all the editing rounds and the book is presently getting typeset and is almost ready for printing. 😀 The book will be listed on NetGalley in late December or early January.

I’m here to share the new and the final blurb of Deceived (hopefully it’ll give you some more insight into the story!):

How well do you know your loved ones? 

A girl struggling to cope with the murders of her mother and five-year-old brother.
A journalist chasing the ghost of a potential serial killer.
A thirteen-year-old girl who slaughtered her parents.
And a revenge-driven psychopath who is about to destroy everyone’s life.

After 9 years, a young writer is still coping with the brutal murders of her mother and five-year-old brother, as she moves into a house of horrors, unwittingly to start a new life with her lover. Will friends and family be able to redeem Ally out of the impending doom in time? Will her infallible love become the key to the destruction of her already fragile world? Will madness prevail over love; true love over revenge?

Deceived is a gripping psychological thriller that mazes through the deepest, darkest emotions of human mind through the story of a vulnerable girl who treads in the mist of deception bred from a long unforgiven betrayal.

I hope you guys like it!

BTW, here is the list of all the awesome Cover Reveals we had last month in celebration of Deceived’s cover release:

There are a couple of Interviews and Guest Posts lined up for this month, so I’ll be sharing them by the end of the month or probably early next month. Do keep an eye out for them on my Twitter and Facebook, though, I always share them there the same day.

Hope you all are having a great weekend.

Ciao ❤

Happy Diwali!

Categories Random29 Comments on Happy Diwali!

Hello, everyone. I’m quickly dropping by to wish you diwali and update you all that I won’t be visitng my blog much for another couple of days as I’ll be a little busy with the pre-ARC preps and writing the Guest-Posts and Interviews my publicist (Em) kindly lined up for me for December and January.

We have the final cover for Deceived ready(!) and the Cover Release is set for the 10th November. 😀
I’ll be sharing the cover here on the morning of 10th November, so please stay tuned and make sure to check it out.
The Cover Reveals will start shortly after that, followed by Guest-Posts and Interviews on various blogs.

Note: We still have a few slots for more cover Release posts. So if you can help me out with the Cover Release post on your blog then I’ll be really grateful. It doesn’t matter if you’ve never done it before; we’ll send you the Cover image and the Book and Author info and all you have to do is post it on your blog as a normal post.

I’ve received a number of overwhelming ARC review requests for Deceived and I’m so thankful to you all!
If you are interested in reviewing Deceived and haven’t already requested a copy yet, then feel free to drop in a line to me and I’ll be happy to pass along your name to my publicist.

Anyway, I’ve got another Novel Critique so November is looking jam packed already as I’ll be receiving the first batch of printed ARCs after 20th November and also because I’ll be doing NaNoWriMo too.

Also, I’ve decided to shift The Reading Bud to WordPress.org and I’m planning a small make-over for it in December! So I’m really excited for TRB too 😀

Rest everything is going great! I’m having one hell of a time enjoying life as a new author and I feel blessed to have such amazing friends and readers like you all! Thank you for all your support and encouragement. It was all possible because of you guys! ❤

And before I say good bye, I’d like to wish everyone a very Happy Diwali in advance. May this festival of lights bring oodles of happiness and wealth into your lives…

Hope you are all having a great week!

Checking In

Categories News, Writing15 Comments on Checking In

Due to a really busy month-end, I missed my September Month End Updates post. It was a crazy month end and there was so much to do that I was not able to sit down and pull myself together to write a post. To be really honest, I prepared last month’s Newsletter also on the last day. I know that’s not wise, but it was well worth it.

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Me in the last week of September’16

Anyway, I’m doing this check-in post to share something important with you all.

I’ve been receiving a lot of requests from writer friends and acquaintances for reading and helping them out with their manuscripts. I hate to say no, but unfortunately due to my own writing schedules and reading, I can’t say yes to everyone.
After a lot of thought, I’ve come up with an idea that’ll ensure that I won’t be spending too much of my time reading others’ stories at least not without getting anything in return for all the efforts.

I’ve started to critique novels for a fee. I’m still working as the Social Media Strategist for a publication, but as that barely takes 6 hours per week, I have started to Critique Novels in whatever spare time I have.

You can read more about it in detail here.

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Me as a Novel Critique now 😀

I’ve already landed two full-length manuscripts for critiquing. One is a mystery-thriller, and the other one is a very unique psychological dark fiction. I’m very grateful to have such a splendid start! I’m already booked for this entire month and I’m really excited to see how many more manuscripts I’ll get in the coming months.

I’m sharing this here because I’ve received a couple of inquiries in the past from a few of my blog followers so I thought I’ll make it official here just in case if someone needs a Critique.

I’m open for submissions, but as I’m already booked for this month, I’ll be scheduling the new ones for November (only 1 manuscript) and December (2-3 manuscripts.) You can check out the costing here.

For booking my Novel Critique, please fill out this form.

If you have friends or followers who are authors or aspiring writers, please share this post; you never know who might be in a need of a Novel Critique.

Hope you’re having a great week!