What Is NaNoWriMo All About?

Recently I was speaking to a group of readers when someone expressed interest in NaNoWriMo, which I have always maintained has been a huge inspiration for my writing. NaNoWriMo is an acronym for the National Novel Writing Month.

Taking part in NaNoWriMo is an exhilarating experience. I did it for the first time in 2009 and from this effort emerged my debut novel, “It Can’t Be You” a psychological thriller. This was in 2010. Since then I completed NaNoWriMo in 201o, 2011 and more recently in 2012.

“Lucky For Some, 13” was my second thriller, which was based on my “NaNo novel” as we call it from NaNoWriMo of 2010. This was published in December 2012.

I came across this presentation titled “WAC and NaNo: Lessons in Letters and Symbiosis” from students of Kaplan University. It has a wealth of detail about NaNoWriMo and I found it most interesting.

Here are some awesome figures:

  • In the first year, 1999, there were all of 21 participants with 6 being  declared winners
  • In 2006, there were 101,510 participants with 15,333 being declared winners
  • In 2009, when I first took part, there were 167, 150 participants with 32, 178 being declared winners
  • In 2011, there were 256,618 participants with 36, 843 being declared winners.

Of course, I must add that it felt great to read my name in the list of “Published Authors.”:)

“Sivakamiyin Sabadham”: Translated into English for you.

When the door bell rang one evening and outside stood a courier chappie with a packet in hand, I wondered which book this could be. It came as a pleasant surprise to find the packet contained Kalki Krishnamurthy’s Tamil novel, “Sivakamiyin Sabadham,” translated into English in four volumes by Nandini Vijayaraghavan. Continue reading ““Sivakamiyin Sabadham”: Translated into English for you.”

“Idlis To Ipads” by Nirmala Ramaswamy

I had the chance to read this delightful book called, “Idlis to Ipads” recently. The author, Nirmala Ramaswamy very aptly sums up what the book is about when she gave it the by line, ” Tales of a lifetime.” The book is published by Nirmala Publications and the copy I have is priced at Rs. 120 making it a total value for money proposition. In fact, I would urge you to  order copies directly from her by writing to : nirmala200a@gmail.com

Continue reading ““Idlis To Ipads” by Nirmala Ramaswamy”

Jaswant Singh on Jinnah

Thanks to Jaswant Singh, former External Affairs Minister of India for writing ” Jinnah: India-Partition-Independence” a scholarly treatise on what actually happened before the calamity of the Partition of India way back in 1947. The publication of the book ( Rupa & Co 2009) stirred up a great deal of controversy. Singh was expelled from the BJP- in which party he had grown to be an admired leader. There was a school of thought that he did wrong in praising Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan. Actually that makes for an interesting debate which is the central theme of the book.

Continue reading “Jaswant Singh on Jinnah”