Aasiyah Qamar & Nolwynn Ardennes

I simply cannot believe it! All this week, I've been living on a borrowed lease, hovering on clouds and then crashing to nothingness in the blink of an eye. Why?

Because it was the week of October 2!

Light My World came out yesterday, and Eirelander Publishing is officially in business!

I still think I'm dreaming. Throughout the past weeks, I've been dropping by here and looking at the counter on the right hand corner - the glowing blue numbers ticking down seconds, minutes, hours, days (oaky, lol, wasn't watching it that rabidly!). There was always a few days left, but today - today all I can see there is a display of fireworks that closely resembles that one in my own heart.

It's been a long time coming. Penning this ms almost 2 years ago, polishing it to make it shine, submitting, and then pulling it back to sit and wait because my heart and soul were telling me that THE opportunity would come, that I just had to have faith and wait.

At that same time, I submitted again, to a barely there and just-sketched small press called Eirelander Publishing. It was back in late 2008. Then somewhere in early 2009, I get a phone call from Lee Morris, owner and editor-in-chief of the press, who in her unmistakable Irish brogue, tells me she wants the book, and that she wants it to debut Eirelander too in the same go!

It's been like a dream since then, one I somehow couldn't really grasp was happening. It's strange, like you know it happened but it feels so unreal at the same time.

But now it's here, and my book is out into the world!

It's been getting a few good quips, that I thought I'd share with you.

The words of the editor-in-chief:

Light My World is a wonderful spin on Cinderella with a multicultural twist. Diya Hemant wants more out of life than marriage and children. Fate has other ideas. A series of fortunate mishaps will keep you turning the pages.

A review quip by author Belladonna Bordeaux:

A wonderful story of two ships meet and collide. I couldn't put it down. Diya is wonderfully fresh and Trent is drop-dead the man you want to have hit your rear bumper. Two thumbs up.

Here's where the book is available:

http://eirelander.webs.com/lightmyworld.htm

www.allromanceebooks.com

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B002PHMNRY - Kindle edition

I'm so happy and excited, I just had to share! I hope you'll drop by and acquire a copy of Light My World! And if/when you do, please feel free to send me your comments.

Cheers and hugs!!

Hello everyone

First of all, I cannot believe it's been more than 2 months since I last came here to blog! I know, I'm really sorry for that, but when you know what's been going on in my side of the world, you may understand.

Winter (means you barely do anything except hibernate!), winter school break for the kids (meaning nothing gets done!), seasonal flu outbreak (everyone gets sick!) and then swine flu pandemic (schools closed, everyone sick until you feel you're close to death!)

Still, something productive got done. In a crazy challenge, I just had to write down the story that had been invading all my thoughts at the start of the winter. I sat down and wrote like a mad woman, until I completed a 50K+ ms in 2 weeks, yup, Friday fro Friday! Said ms went on to be bought a few weeks later by Eirelander Publishing. It's a mystery/suspense thriller with romantic elements, titled Walking on the Edge, and it is slotted for release on July 2, 2010. The cover and blurb will follow soon on Nolwynn's books' page.

So this being said, I am even more baffled by another matter - Light My World comes out in 8 days! I remember when I first put that date countdown on the site, it had like 100 or more days ticking down, and to believe the release is just round the corner! Needless to say, I am terribly excited and a crazy ball of nerves at the same time!

With the book coming out, I will be promoting my way around the web in the coming weeks. Here's where you'll be able to find me:

September 29 - Author Liena Ferror's blog - Liena will be interviewing me

October 1 - Mistress Bella's Interviews - In light of the release and the official opening of Eirelander Publishing, my interview will be featured at this blog. Don't miss it!

And, as usual, I'll be around the web blogging.

Every Thursday, my industry/craft blog at Royal Blush Authors

Mid- October, my monthly post at the Pop Culture Divas. Catch the post I wrote for September here: Super-Heroine or... Super-Zeroine?

And if you're on Facebook, come check out my author group. Light My World will also be the featured book at Love Romance Novels, one of the biggest groups dedicated to romance on FB during the week of the book's release!

So there you go, my lineup for the coming weeks! Busy bee I will be, but you know what? That's how I like it!

Cheers and hugs to all!!

Hello everyone!

I hope you're having a lovely time, and that the weather in your part of the world is not as dreadful as the one here on the higher plateaus of Mauritius! Sun is barely out at 8 am, you drive in the clouds on the motorway so much there's swirling fog around you, and on some days, you wonder if you yourself ain't living on a cloud so much you can't see anything outside! Add to it a blistering icy wind and practically no ray of sun during the whole day, urghhh!

Makes you just wanna pull up a quilt and watch TV, or read, or sleep... Just as well then that we recently got access to a new channel on the satellite dish. Lots of American stuff on it, but it's dubbed in French since we get access to satellite channels that air in France. But still, it's the programmes that matter.

That's how I watched my very first episode of Kitchen Nightmares a few weeks ago, and been totally hooked ever since, even going on binges on weekends when the show airs for most of the evening. I have to add that a big, big, big motivator is the yummy dish Gordon Ramsay himself (pun fully intended here!) I'd heard about the man, read about him, looked him up on the net, but nothing compared to actually seeing him 'in the flesh' and in action. Can you say tall, blond, handsome and fit as an athlete with a body to die for in one single go? Like a friend of mine was saying, he can cook too - sign me up!! And that accent -- ahhh, turns one to mush, I tell ya!

Now, there's something about a British bloke many people don't realise - they're mostly potty mouths. And Ramsay's no exception! Despite the French dubbing, you can clearly hear every inflection of his voice, and every choice word he utters. My husband watched only one episode and went, he swears too much. I agree, but hey, he's British and British men swear (especially outside the aristocracy!)! That's how they actually talk, with a swear word, a curse, an expletive sandwiched between every two other 'normal' word. Just watch movies like Layer Cake (with the none less yummy Daniel Craig!), Hot Fuzz, Shaun of the Dead, Death at a Funeral (cutey Matthew McFadyen here), and Guy-Ritchie directed flicks such as Snatch and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. Definitely not something you'd want your kids to watch or even overhear! If one were to obliterate the swearing in them, you'd only hear bleep-bleep-bleep throughout the movie! Again, hubby watched those movies with me, and every time, he went - too much swearing even if the story's good.

I was like - face it! British men swear, and that's what adds to the authenticity of the movies I mentioned above, and even Ramsay's discourse. In books, you'd see something similar in Martina Cole's books which are set in the criminal underworld of the London East End. Choice words, expletives and definitely authentic manners of speech and behaviour. It's actually fresh, natural, and completely authentic to hear people talking like that, because that's what you'd get to hear in real life too.

Which then brings me to the issue of authenticity in writing. In my current WIP, the hero is from New Zealand. I've never set foot there, and the only Kiwis I know are from movies and Facebook! How then do I make this hero sound authentic?

Research, research, and more reasearch. Check NZ slang dictionaries online to get a feel for how they talk. Watch every interview I can find of Peter Jackson, LOTR NZ director, on Youtube, to hear the accent. Read everything I can find about NZ culture, to know what the minset and behaviour is like there. And finally, the best imo, contact someone who's a local. I'm lucky that one of my trusted and dear friends is a born and bred Kiwi. Caught her on IM, and had a lengthy chat about how and what NZ men are about. Sent her drafts of dialogue, to know if the hero sounds local. Asked her about little details only a local can enlighten you about, like, would an NZ bloke call his girl darling or babe?

At the end of this, and as I'm writing this hero, Logan, he's starting to emerge as a real, local New Zealander. I so want people to go, he sounds really authentic, especially if a Kiwi were to pick up the story and read it. And I want people who don't know New Zealanders to go, I didn't know they were like this, and get a real, respectful, and authentic feel of what these men are about.

The feel of authenticity - that's what I'm striving to infuse into my story. For the heroine, Neha, I already jumped into the deep end of the pool with the whole domestic goddess episode.

Now tell me - you as writers and readers - how do you go about infusing authenticity in your works? Does this authentic feeling make a difference in your reading and/or writing experience? I'd love to hear your take on this!

Oh, btw, started writing the WIP and I'm 8K down so far!

From now till later, cheers!

Hey everyone

Gads, seems like everything's been acting up lately! Last week, I couldn't post coz there were upgrades on the site server being done, and in the meantime, the temps are playing roller coaster, the kids are getting cheekier by the day, the stress of just being alive is threatening to kill every remaining functioning neuron, and even better, you find your WIP acting up on you too!

*Stop. Sit. Breathe in. And Scream!!*

Oh that was good! I feel much better. Back to what we were talking about - yes, a dilemma in the writing.

I am personally acquainted with every member of the tribe of dust bunnies who live in my home. So how then did I think I could write about a heroine who's so much a domestic goddess she makes Bree Van de Kamp look like a slob?

Good question here - am I polarizing her too much? Could be. So I toned her down, and she is still light years away from the make-believe domestic non-goddess I am!

So what to do? How to get myself into her shoes, as I'd explained last week on my other promo/craft blog with the posse of the Royal Blush Authors (http://royalblushauthors.blogspot.com/)?

Research? I throw myself into every online edition of Good Housekeeping I can find, as well as scout the e-zines of iVillage Home and Better Homes and Gardens. Did you know they have tricks to halve housekeeping duty time? And best, did you know those very tips take ages to do???

I then resort to information osmosis by observation, by watching the domestic goddesses I know in my entourage. After a couple of hours, I'm about ready to take a double dose of Prozac on their behalf. Come on, women, slow down! Do you even remember to breathe, or don't you do it unless you have a clean mask on your nose for fear of inhaling the toxic fumes of those same products you're using to clean?

I'm still none the wiser when I stumble back still reeling in front of my laptop. Damn it, why did my heroine have to be so manic? And that's when the lightbulb moment came along! She can be all the domestic goddess she wants to be, everything that needs to be highlighted in the story takes place through her thoughts and mind and - thank goodness! - not through how to combine white vinegar with water to get a miracle solution for cleaning everything!

So tell me, has anything ever acted up in your work or writing process? Has anything ever happened to make you change your stand and position where a story or a character was concerned? And oh yeah, what's your thought on the need to be a domestic goddess? (come on, ease my mind that I don't need to turn out the dust bunnies. Poor lovelies will be homeless...)

From now till later, cheers!

P.S. If like me your world is very grey at the moment, take a little boost of diet-improving sugar here in my post for the Pop Culture Divas. Yummy pics of scrumptious men, guaranteed 0 calorie, 0% fat-free!

http://popculturedivas.blogspot.com/2009/06/sports-candy.html

To me, it reads more as - curiosity never killed the writer!

I find myself this week at a turning point in my writing life, one I look forward to with glee but also one I apprehend a lot. Why? Because I am about to start a new story.

It's always sad to leave a story behind. All those locales you visited, all those people you got to know in the form of the characters, all the happenings you were privy to in their life and their quest for love. But, we have to remember that we're embarking on a new journey with another set of characters and we're gonna be privy to their lives too for the coming months.

That's where I take a deep breath and let the apprehension take hold before I slowly push it out of my system. Some will say I also push the sanity out, because I am now about to start talking to my characters.

I hear the sound of the awful disk being screeched backwards - and someone going - stop, rewind, and say that again?

Yes, I'm about to start having conversations with my characters. How else will I get to know them and tell my readers their story from their very hearts and souls?

Curiosity never killed any writer, and I'm pretty certain curiosity is actally a good thing. It makes you want to know things about the people you are going to pen down. Even if that knowledge never makes it into the book. In Storms in a Shot Glass (January 8, 2010 - Eirelander), the hero Michael talks with a to-die-for accent that people from the area of Salisbury have, a sort of soft drawl in the British tone (listen to James Blunt and skip over the nasal bit, and you'll know what I mean!). But this never made it into the story, even if whenever Michael would talk, I would be hearing this accent.

I prefer interviewing my characters or talking to them in my head, ping-ponging questions, answers, thoughts, remarks and barbs with them. It gives me the dimension of 'real' I need to write them convincingly.

Others may use character sheets and that kind of preparation, but daydreaming has always worked for me (and until proof of the contrary, I'm still sane!).

I'd love to know how you go about getting to know your characters, and what the start of a story/project means to you.

From now till later, cheers n hugs!!

In a remarkable game that had everyone on the edge of their seats on Sunday, current tennis World No 1 player and King of the terre battue of Roland Garros, Rafael Nadal, was outed by a player ranked only 23rd on the ATP list!

If that came as a surprise! Nadal had not lost any of the past 30+ games he's played on the clay court surface, and everyone hoped and dreamed that this 'downfall' would come at the hands of the one who views him as a nemesis at Roland Garros, World No 2, Roger Federer.

This just goes to show that nothing is set in stone.

Something similar happened to me when I first ventured into writing. My goal was a magnum opus the likes of A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth, the work of many years that would cover many aspects of a society, a country and its history. Instead, from this framework spun my first book, The Other Side, about a divorcee's situation in traditional Mauritian society.

I had wanted to write one book. I'd done it. But again, nothing is set in stone. I thus found myself penning another story, on the same society, and this is how Light My World, my upcoming release with Eirelander Publishing (October 2, 2009), came into existence.

Not content with having penned two books, I now knew that writing flowed in my blood and was as vital to me as the haemoglobin that colours my blood plasma (lol, I worked in the medical field and also come from a very medical family. I 'strayed' into writing and the humanities!).

Stories started vying for attention in my mind, and suddenly I wanted to write something other than culture too, and that's how Nolwynn Ardennes stepped up and started writing her own stories, the first of which, Storms in a Shot Glass, is slotted for an early 2010 release with Eirelander Publishing (January 8, 2010).

From one book to already 3 finished novels and not counting the sheer amount of Works-in-Progress and the ones waiting none-too-silently on the backburner, I've been bitten by the writing bug and I know there never will be a cure for me. Truth be told, I don't want it to be a cure!

So now, tell me, what got you started into writing? And has something happened to make you change directions?

From now till later, cheers!