Showing posts with label Self Publishing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Self Publishing. Show all posts

Thursday, December 16, 2021

Failing Strong Women

           


          It is about the writers (author, whatever they think they are and whatever their readers think they are). It is also about the readers.

Two nights ago I was forwarded with a bunch of poems. All of them are very weepy. The poet herself wept while reading. All of them about some women who never fought back but submitted to the aggression even before being succumbed to it!

Have you seen any animal do that? Isn’t that against our nature, as animals? Aren’t we, the women, the humane females, though political, but animals?

In this argument, it has come to my mind that we’re probably more political than being animals. Because we want us to be loved. We want us to be liked. Hence, we conform to what the people, the consumer, the patron like.

If our patron likes us to lie, we lie. If our consumers prefer to find glorified victimization, we do victimize our protagonists. We don’t let our protagonist win. Instead we prefer them to be bitten, beaten, eaten raw.

That’s why the poet wrote weepy poems about defeated women.

She claims by bringing those stories she is reflecting how misogynous the society is.

Really? 

Or, is it the other way round?

Misogyny loves to flaunt its overpowering charisma by enervating women. So through organized, syndicated, incorporated media they shove through our throat (I meant, mind) the stories of defeated enervated women. The nerve centers for sympathy get titillated by the depiction of pain of the bitten one. The media that promote such works get richer and sprinkle a part of its booty at the propagators (poets, writers, authors) of its misogynistic cause, though the propagators keep thinking that they fought against misogyny. (Ha ha), while they actually conformed to misogyny and fed misogyny their own existence. (ha ha).

My weapon to fight misogyny is to glorify the winning battles of the strong women. Life is not about win or loss until we lose it. Life is full of myriad battles against odds. Sometimes, some of those odds can be identified to be misogyny, but we, men and women, throughout our lives fight these battles.

So, I love strong women in real life and in fiction. I love them in their winning fights, in their win-win fights, in their no-win fights. There is no battle lost in life because war is never over unless life is over. No one loses a battle in life, unless they lose their life. 

If you are really against misogyny and really want it to lose, then start supporting strong women. The might of those women is not only in their muscles but also in their brain. Straight or crooked they play the game to outplay their opponents. Nice or rude, they become whatever they need to be whenever they need to be. Black, white or gray their choices do not matter. Only matters are the fact that they fought it to win. Only matters their choice to fight to overpower misogyny. Only matters that they do not yield to misogynistic charade of propagating misogyny in garb of resistance to misogyny.

So be tired of the victimization by misogyny and become a fan today of strong fighting women. If you would like to know more about them, then you have a choice here. Sixty Two authors brought to you more than a hundred fiction about strong women. All of them have been published independently, by the authors themselves, and also marketed by the authors themselves.

I am proud to be part of them. My Fatima from “Maternal Might” and Reema from “How to Steal a Pond” are fighting their battles alongside a hundred plus others. Will you support them?

If you are fighting against misogyny, then support these authors by reading their books and speaking about them, posting about their books on social media. Only then your fight against misogyny would become real. Otherwise, it would all remain fiction, created by misogynous components of society, of misogynistic pleasure, for benefiting misogynistic purposes.

Once more the choice is yours. You can choose your fight over misogyny  here. Or, you can lose it by submitting to it by going gung-ho in protest against it even before being succumbed.

It’s a question of life or death in the hands of misogyny. 

Last chance, here’s your weapon.


Thursday, December 2, 2021

Wanna Be an Advance Reader of my upcoming books?


 

Readers are the pillars to the authors’ endeavor. They have helped me improve my writing. They have helped me keep writing even during the darkest hours.

So this is my way to say how much I lean on YOU, my readers. 

This is an offer. If you wish you can have advanced copies of my soon to be published books.

All you need is to fill up a simple form. It has less than ten questions. You need to choose your response from the options. There are less than five options for each question. Options are mostly “Yes”, “No” and “Maybe”.

If you agree to be a reader of advanced copies of my unpublished books, you would find one in your email in the desired format.

Happy Reading.

Pot Script:

  • You may need to scroll down to HIT the SUBMIT button.

  • If you find this blog being unable to show you the form below, just CLICK HERE to fill up YOUR intentions on the form.

  • Feel free to send me feedback here.

Thursday, September 30, 2021

Indian Citizenship Decoded is Free

 


Once more, celebrating birth anniversary of Mahatma Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi,  the father of the nation, Indian Citizenship Decoded can be downloaded free from all Amazon Kindle Market places.

Why would you download it for free?

How would you download the book?

And answers to many more questions can be found at the following links. Please check them out.

Why Indian Citizenship Decoded

More About Why Indian Citizenship Decoded

Buying Indian Citizenship Decoded in Different Marketplace

Relevance of Indian Citizenship Decoded


More about those questions are on YouTube. Get there.

Even then if are riddled with questions, then just shoot them on the comment section.

Get back with your feedback on the book at: And send your feedback by at: https://www.amazon.in/review/create-review/?ie=UTF8&channel=glance-detail&asin=B09875SJF8

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Wednesday, September 8, 2021

Pros and Cons of Beta Reading

 Beta Reading is ……

Dangerous, at times.

Helpful sometimes.

Yet, I am still keeping an open mind.

I introduced my piece to be a flash fiction.

Beta Reading comments were:

  • Too many character introductions needed more built.

  • Too much is happening too quickly.

Isn’t it surprising?

Some advised to choose a topic that is not too vast.

Some protested the transition from one POV to the other.

And there are the usual grammar police, going beyond wholesome experience and the message, picking up gerunds and transitive verbs.

Instead of spending ten words on describing WHEN SOMETHING HAPPENED, I changed the respective tense of the verbs to create different time stamps in the plot. A question about this experiment was normal. But,  eviscerating an author’s inefficacy based on an experiment is too fanatical.

I have been writing for thirty years now.

I started publishing because a few accidental and private readings by teachers made them ask me for my write ups for school magazines and their private magazines.

My mistake was I asked entry into groups or asked a big publishing house editor for viewing my things.

Groups have their respective political goals and backstabbing methods through numerous private channels surrounding the forum. And I was not a whisperer.

Big publishing houses would not entertain anything outside their propaganda. Their employee editor has not much choice other than picking up a few money churning keywords. Neither big publishing houses can fancy to penetrate a new market with a new author.

With all the experiments and ideas of a potential market, I had to go self publishing. Often publishing under a publisher’s brand is self publishing too, with respect to author’s expense of printing, responsibility of distribution and marketing. So I have decided to do it without publishers’ names tagged along.

I have decided to do it ALONE.

Hence, I sought beta readers.

I do read other authors’ works in progress. I generally give them a reader’s feedback. I don’t suggest a plot point change or expression enhancement. I just convey what has satisfied me and what has not.

My readers made me think if I am seeking feedback from the right crowd. Hence, I would not accept the feedback that suggests elaboration or change of topic of the flash fiction. The efficiency of an author lies in depicting a story, illuminating a story within given limits of different formats(bytes, mini saga, flash fiction, shorts, novella, novel, epic). Whatever may be the topic, the story should be fulfilling and the message must be loud and clear. 

Besides, one of the readers, bragged that none of the contemporary author aspirants are good enough compared to the erstwhile ones. This is not a new complaint.

But I do seldom find the benchmark lies on classics from all over the world. The comparison of every writing is with the contemporary best selling books.

Hence, fantasy is sought in an upmarket novel. Fantasy is sought in sci-fi. Mythology is sought in political novels. Sorcerers are even sought in a Spy thriller or Police Procedural. Especially, while the author seeks feedback before publishing.

[Probably because fantasy gives lots of space to readers’ imagination which cannot be invaded by visual media. Otherwise, all other genres are better enjoyed over visual media at present.]

It is difficult to choose from piles of feedback. An author needs to be aware that her creation was a flash fiction, not the first three pages of a novel. 

To justify my points I would try mini saga format for classics:

If “One thousand years of Solitude” would have been a Mini Saga:

Crossing vicissitudes, some people escaped their sanguinous past; formed a township. The Gypsies explained to them, “The earth is round.”

While searching for her delinquent son, the mother discovered a trade route; ushered in government,  taxes, labor. Revolution insinuated.

Scandals, conservative superstitious cover ups were all blown by a storm.

If “Old Man and the Sea” Would have been a Mini Saga:

The old fisherman dreamt of seas and lions, though caught nothing for the past eighty four days.

Then he found one. While he was sailing with its carcass, imagining freedom from debts, the sharks attacked.

The fishing dock was abuzz with an eighteen feet piscean skeleton. He was asleep then.

It is not the responsibility of the beta reader to be satiated from what they get. It is the author’s choice to pick among feedback and move on.

Therefore, I chose the rare helpful ones and discarded the dangerous ones.

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What do you think?

Let me know in the comments.

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