#Bloggers , you can Still sign up for the #atozchallenge !

Blogging from A to Z April Challenge

I’m hosting the A to Z April Blogging Challenge again this year, on Amlokiblogs. Daily (w)rite had participated in 2011 and I’ve entered it back again in 2013, and for the first time ever, I’ll be AZing on two blogs! Wish me luck.

The brainchild of Arlee Bird, at Tossing it Out, the A to Z Challenge basically requires 26 posts in 26 days based on 26 letters of the alphabet, one post beginning with each letter during the month of April, with Sundays off for good behavior.

If you haven’t signed up yet, you have till April 1 to join in the challenge, and then the epic journey would begin!

On April 1, blog about a topic that begins with the letter “A.” April 2 is “B,” April 3 is “C,” and so on. No posts on Sundays and we finish with Z on April 30.

You can use a theme for the month or go random – just as long as it matches the letter of the alphabet for the day. We recommend short posts – participants will be trying to visit as many as possible during the Challenge and will likely skip long posts.

Please turn off Word Verification! You won’t receive many comments or return visitors if it’s on. Check your settings, as it may be on without your knowledge. If you are really concerned about spam, set comments to no anonymous or blog owner approval.

Make it easy for people to follow you. Use Google Friends Connect, Feedburner or other RSS Feed, Linky Followers, Networked Blogs, etc., and be sure those widgets are located near the top of your sidebar. Time your posts well, so as to get a maximum audience.

Start with the blog after yours on list. We suggest visiting five blogs a day and you are welcome to visit more!

Make new friends. Visit those who visit you. Return the follows of blogs you enjoy.

Each host has a section of the list and will visit you several times during the month.

We also have minions (assistants) who will help us. It is our goal to make sure all blogs on the list are participating. Ad sites, non-participants, and bad links will be removed as we find them.

Visit the A to Z Blog for updates and daily words of encouragement.

Bottom line – have fun!

If you have any questions, please ask. You can still sign up, so if you’re not on the A to Z Blogging Challenge list, add your name on there, NOW!

Would You like to Follow Christine’s Odyssey?

Christine’s Odyssey

Joy L Campbell is launching her latest book, “Christine’s Odyssey.” I hope her book does well, because a good writer and super blog-friend like her deserves all the success she gets. Her main character, Christine, is visiting Daily (w)rite today. Take it away, Christine!

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Howdy. I’m glad you’ve stopped in. My name is Christine and although I’m only eleven, I’m what some adults might call precocious. A lot has happened in my life, some of it bad, but like my dad used to say, good things can result from the bad stuff that happens to us.

To help me celebrate overcoming my challenges, a great gang of authors have teamed up and will be giving away copies of their books. Sweet, yes?

Christine’s Odyssey Launch

For a chance to win a pair of the books listed, you can do anything included on the Rafflecopter or on Facebook on this page. However, for those who’d like to win a $10.00 Amazon Gift Voucher, hop on over to the Jamaican Kid Lit Blog to enter for that.

Anyway, I tend to talk a lot, so before I carried away, here’s my story:

Raised in a hotbed of arguments and fights, eleven-year-old Christine Simms is the victim of her mother’s cruelty. A domestic dispute ends in tragedy, sending the family into a tailspin. 

A shocking discovery sends Christine on a quest to find the stranger who left her behind in Jamaica. Determined to unravel the mystery of her birth, Christine uses every tool at her disposal and treads with courage where no child should. 

Thanks so much for dropping in! I hope you win the novels of your choice. I should tell you that you get to choose books based on how the Rafflecopter does the drawing of the winners. So, if your name comes up first, you get to say which pack you want.

Available in ebook format at AmazonUS.

Joy L Campbell

J.L. Campbell is a proud Jamaican, who is always on the hunt for story-making material. She writes romantic suspense, women’s fiction and young adult novels. She is the also the author of Contraband, Dissolution, Distraction, Don’t Get Mad…Get Even, Giving up the Dream, Retribution and Hardware (written under the pen name Jayda McTyson).

Joy is not only a fantastic writer but also an awesome blog-friend, and I wish her and this book all kinds of success! Please join the giveaway and help Christine’s Odyssey climb the charts.

Do You Give Comment Love?

Recently, while doing the rounds of A to Z April Blogging Challenge it has come to my notice that some bloggers don’t get any comments at all, despite well-written posts, and others get dozens, despite a post which has nothing special to recommend it. This isn’t great for the blogging community.

With the Challenge in another 15 days or so, as a co-host I wanted to discuss this situation, and to help me do this, I’ve invited DL Hammons, another co-host, to Daily (w)rite.

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First off, I want to thank Damyanti for allowing me to hijack her blog for the day.  I wanted to take this opportunity to discuss the importance of community, cross promotion, and at the same time talk about a brand new way to share comment love.

Blogging from A to Z April Challenge

Being a co-host of the A to Z April Blogging Challenge has given me a chance to broaden my exposure to the outpouring of support the blogosphere has to offer.  Hands down, there is no better resource for aspiring writers. Information and experience is shared openly by multi-published authors, agents, editors, other industry professionals, even newbie writers attending their first conference.  The trick is learning how to shake off the insecurities that accompany being new, and just dive in.

I’m constantly reading how new bloggers are intimidated by this seemingly tight-knit community, taking a long time before they work up the courage to comment.  That’s funny, because comments are the life blood of blogging.  It’s the positive feedback received from these snippets of sunshine that motivates all of us to continue to churn out helpful material.  It’s also the Yin-Yang philosophy of the blogosphere that adds a different significance to commenting.  If you want to be noticed, then the best way is to do that is to comment, and comment often.

Insecure Writers!

 There have been many vehicles developed to help bloggers make connections with others just like them.  Blog hops, Blogfests, IWSG, and the A to Z Challenge are just a few examples.  But recently a worrisome trend has crept up where people feel they don’t get nearly as many comments as they make when participating in these events.  Whether this is true or not, a good rule of thumb is to treat every comment you leave as both a digital HUG…and an investment in your own imprint.  People tend to gravitate towards bloggers who comment frequently…and have something to say beyond “Nice Post.”

Blog Blitz

I recently invented something new, and it squarely revolves around commenting.  I call it the BLOG BLITZ.

Here’s how it works — after you sign up on the linky list (click on the badge), you’ll become a member of the Blog Blitz Team.  Then from time to time, I select a deserving blog (that must be part of the Blitz Team) and a specific date.  I then email the team members the information and on that date we all go out of our way to visit that blog and leave an encouraging comment on their most recent post.  I’m talking about hopefully a 100+ comments appearing out of the blue in one day!

At first I’ll pick who gets blitzed, but then I’ll start taking recommendations from other members for deserving targets. My only restriction about who joins the Blog Blitz Team is that your blog cannot be primarily for commercial gain.

Thanks again to Damyanti for sharing her space with me. If you take anything from my words today, let it be this…spread the comment love!

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DL Hammons

D.L. Hammons  enjoys taking a break from writing technical journals and procedure manuals for his day job and dabbling with novel writing or an occasional short story.  Son of a military family, he grew up across the southeast and ultimately graduated with a Business degree from Louisiana State University.  After a stint working in the big city (Atlanta), he packed up his family and settled in central Arkansas to be closer to family.  His love for writing was seeded in high school where he wrote both news and feature articles for the school paper, but it wasn’t until his children began heading off to college that he found the time to resurrect his passion for prose.  Although his first love falls into the Mystery/Suspense realm, he has recently discovered an interest in YA.  His short story Itinerary is scheduled to be published in AN HONEST LIE this spring.

Would You Read Interactive Literary Fiction?

Literary fiction writers are often a staid, boring lot. (I should know, I’ve written in this ‘genre’ for about 5 years now, and have been reading it for decades.) But as I read in the Guardian yesterday, top novelists are now looking to ebooks to challenge the rules of fiction!

Updating Literary Fiction

“Online fiction is a remote world, peopled by elves, dragons and whey-faced vampires. At least that is the view shared by millions of devoted readers of the printed novel. But now serious British literary talent is aiming to colonise territory occupied until now by fantasy authors and amateur fan-fiction writers.

In the vanguard is Iain Pears, the best-selling historical novelist and author of An Instance of the Fingerpost and Stone’s Fall. Pears will offer readers the chance to go back to check detailed elements of his narrative and will even flag up sections they do not have to read. “I am trying to find a new way of telling stories, and once you start thinking about it, there are almost too many possibilities,” said the Oxford-based writer, who is completing an interactive ebook for Faber that will stretch the form to its current limits. “There is no reason to think the printed book will be the defining literary format. I don’t want to be cautious any more. This is about changing the fundamentals. The worst that can happen is that it won’t work.”

It is a challenge that also intrigues acclaimed authors Blake Morrison and Will Self, although they detect some obstacles. As professor of creative writing at Goldsmiths College, at the University of London, Morrison has just launched a £10,000 prize for innovative new writing and argues that the success of experimental ebooks will depend on making interactivity more than just a feature. “Reading by its very nature is interactive – whether you do it on an iPad or with a printed book, you participate,” he said. “The novelist creates a world and the reader brings something to it. Reading is not a passive process. Literary interactivity means more than computer games. Or should do.”

I don’t like the prevalent dismissive attitude towards genre fiction, and I’m happy the ‘serious’ writers are waking up to the possibility of ebooks, and interactivity. I wouldn’t mind the ability to choose a different ending, or any other stunt the stalwarts of literary writing think up. If it is gimmicky, so what? It can be fun!

What do you think of Interactive Literary Fiction? Would you read it? Are you an ebook fan or a paper-book fan, or like, me, a bit of both?

Daisy Irani tells us about We Are Like This Only!

We’re Like This Only!

We Are Like This Only!  is HuM Theatreʼs new play on why Singaporean Indians canʼt figure each other out. It is a forum theatre treatment of the integration issues rattling the Indian diaspora. The divide between the “local” Indians and the “Indian” Indians seems to be widening on the back of seemingly justified perceptions of each other, depending on whose point of view you take. Daisy Irani, the director of the play answers some of the questions related to this interesting performance.

We’re Like This Only! cast posing with passports

Why did  We Are Like This Only! interest you as a director?

Pretty simple. The issue of integration is important to all Singaporeans. Indians here are particularly sensitive to the incoming stream of new Indian immigrants coming in to the country. There are truths and misconceptions, in equal measure, flying around in the blogosphere and in the social circuits which require airing in the theatre space. There is drama in conflict, there is humour in controversy and there is always the possibility of progress in honest debate.

For those that are unfamiliar with this play, could you tell us about the show?

This is a variation of forum theatre. The play is a set of sketches portraying the wild perceptions Indians have of each other, the stereotyping of the characters and  sometimes the ridiculousness of the dis-enchantments they have with each other. It’s all treated with a sense of comedy without sacrificing the seriousness of the matter. Four actors play out a varied set of roles including a security guard, a business man, a Tamil teacher, a banker’s wife, a doctor, a FTI and more– all Indians, all opinionated, all a bit crazy. Because we are like this only! The entertainment does not end with the performance of the actors. It’s then that the audience gets into the act and offers counsel to the characters, questions them, relates their own experiences/ anecdotes and debates the issues. It’s fun but also healing.

  Could you tell us more about HuM Theatre?

HuM Theatre has had a run of three very well received productions — Rafta Rafta, Prisoner of Mumbai Mansion and The Kanjoos – which accounted for four nominations for the Life Theatre Awards and one win. The plays were all devised to be of relevance to Singapore  with multi-racial casts and with hugely entertaining content. Our philosophy is to tell a story but tell it in a way that appeals to everybody who buys a ticket.

Who is your target audience for this play, and what would you wish the audience to take away with them?

Given the topicality of it, a play dealing with integration should be an automatic invitation to anyone who resides in Singapore or plans to do so. Because the issues are very directly pointed at the Indian diaspora we would expect every Indian in the country to be there – seriously! Because the new Indians are here and they are not going away and the legacy Indians will always be around so we better start sorting out our differences or at least agreeing to accept them. We are a small section of the Singaporean population and it makes no sense for us to be at odds with each other. ‘We Are Like This Only” offers a a fun way to kick off the process.

The cast of We Are Like This Only!

Could you comment on the cast of We’re Like This Only! ?

Very appropriately we have a very diverse cast — a Parsi, a Sindhi, a Tamil and a Punjabi. Three of them are second generation Singaporeans. They have the depth of experience and maturity to tackle the subject matter and interact with the audience.
Is this there something you are especially excited about, in this show coming together?

Forum Theatre is in itself exciting because we don’t know what to expect from the audience. That’s the fun part. The socio-cultural-political issues of integration are complex but we can treat them with a touch of comedy and hope like hell that the audience pick up the baton and run with it.

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Click here to watch the trailer for this play, and follow Hum Theatre on Facebook. I wish HuM Theatre all the best with this production and hope We Are Like This Only! would be a roaring success.

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Daisy Irani as Mrs. Bhalla

About Daisy Irani: A professional media person with 25 years of experience across theatre, television and film; Daisy Irani had an extensive career in India before she came to Singapore where she became best known for originating the role of “Daisy” in “Under One Roof”, Singapore’s first local sitcom.

It was not long before she found her place behind the camera and went on to become the Executive Producer for a number of highly-rated TV series for MediaCorp including but not limited to “Maggi and Me”, “Incredible Tales” and “Point of Entry”; as well as helmed several Asian Television Award-winning TV comedies such as “Phua Chu Kang”, “Living with Lydia” and “Daddy’s Girls”.

Theatre has always been close to Daisy’s heart and she was delighted to have won the Best Actress award in the 12th Straits Times Life! Theatre Awards held in March 2012, for her role as the beleaguered wife in the Prisoner of Mumbai Mansions by HuM Theatre.

Of Blue Whales and Turtles: A Slow Hourglass in Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka is a well-kept secret. In the space of a few days, I helped a baby turtle hatch, watched some of the most venomous snakes in the world up close, (without a glass pane in between!), and got to see not only a a huge pod of dolphins, but also the planet’s largest animal– a blue whale.

Mirissa Sunset snapshot, taken from my Balcony at the Mandara Resort

We stayed at Mirissa over the weekend, and if you ever find yourself there, I recommend the Mandara resort. After you get over the slightly run-down rooms and slow service (they do try hard to make your stay comfy, but at a holiday pace), you’ll enjoy the gorgeous views (the sunsets are incredible), the quiet beach, and local cuisine catered to your taste.

Holding a baby turtle, just hatched

The staff also takes care of the night-time guests on its stretch of the beach– turtles.

If a turtle lays eggs on the Mandara beach, the eggs are protected for 45 days, and then once they hatch, the baby turtles are sent off to the sea, thus protecting them from various predators.

I got to pick up the babies, and watch them scramble into the sea!

Newly Hatched Baby Turtles

Dewmini’s Roti Shop

If you eat at only one place in Mirissa, make it the Dewmini Roti Shop. Despite their rather unglamorous name, their food is definitely something to write home about.

The range of their scrumptious roti is simply amazing. Lonely Planet and Tripadvisor know what they’re talking about when they recommend this tiny place.

We also went to a snake farm: and here are some of the occupants we met:

The video is shaky because I kept running away– the snakes were not defanged (the handler showed us the fangs on a Russel’s Viper), and I’m not brave.

An angry white cobra at Mirissa, one of the most beautiful snakes I’ve ever seen.

I’m not a fan of snakes kept in captivity, but it is better than killing them outright — which is what most people around the world do. The farm is in a village on a hilltop, where tiny farms and homes jostle against each other– snakes are so plentiful that I saw one on the way up, and another came swirling by as the handler was showing us the regulars. Both were non-venomous, thank God!

But the best was for the last: the blue whales. We could see the spouts at a distance of almost a kilometer, and as we drew closer, we could see their glistening blue-black bodies ease gently into the sea and the humongous tail followed right after. The blue whales are shy creatures, not curious like greys — but the thought that something so huge, intelligent, and alive was right next to our boat brought tears to my eyes. It is amazing that they do not overturn even the smallest of fishing boats by accident.

This Blue whale was within 30 feet of our boat!

Our captain was a whale-lover, and if you go to Mirissa, I recommend you go with Raja and the Whales– knowledgeable crew, who did not harass the whales like I saw the other boats do, but still got us as close as 30 feet to the planet’s largest animal. Blue whales get easily stressed, are endangered because they were hunted to near-extinction, and reproduce at a slow rate. They need all the consideration they can get.

Sri Lanka definitely makes the hourglass turn slow. I was so dazed and awed most of the time, I took very few pictures. All the pics above are from my husband’s camera. If you live in Asia, or are planning on traveling here, please don’t miss Sri Lanka. It has so much more to offer, in terms of beautiful beaches and jungles, awesome fauna, gastronomy, ease of travel, and friendly, smiling hosts, we plan to visit Sri Lanka again.

In Which I Look Back in Anger #India

The following post is for the Insecure Writers Support Group hosted by Alex J. Cavanaugh.

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I’ve spent most of the last month of 2012 being angry. It is the January of a new year and I’m angry still. It simmers right beneath the surface, ready to lash out at an unsuspecting victim. I keep it in check, but it seems like it’s waiting in ambush.

In case you’re wondering what this is all about, you might have heard of the gang rape in Delhi (yes, it unfortunately has its own wiki entry), where a woman was raped and sodomized using an iron rod in a moving bus by 6 men, so much so that her intestines fell out and she succumbed to her injuries after a battle lasting almost two weeks. Warning: I suggest you do not read the details if you intend to have a peaceful morning, afternoon, evening, depending on where in the world you are when you’re reading this.

Other people have written about it, some in moving words I myself would’ve chosen to express my very personal feelings on the subject, so I won’t go into the other ramifications here. Since this is an insecure writer’s group — I’ll march straight on, selfishly, myopically, towards my own individual anger.

(As I write this, India still protests against the crime that has left people grasping for words, and made the government and its police beat up its own people. People are angry with the establishment, some of which has been accused of crimes against women, others who advice women that it is their own fault they get molested or raped, and yet others whose commentary on the protesters will make the blood of any sane human being boil.)

Since the incident first came to light, I’ve been wanting to bash something, somebody, getting migraines — my peace of mind poisoned, like a scorpion stinging itself.

Everyday I see the girls and women (and some menfolk) protest in New Delhi’s freezing winters, (initially braving brutality from the very police that’s supposed to protect them), I remember the number of times men have tried to grope me or my friends in buses, passed humiliating remarks, hit me on the road, once causing me a sprain and at another time, a concussion.

I watch the protests become politicized, and I want to drink the blood of those who want to exploit the death of this girl. A girl whose name I do not know, who did not want to be a hero. She only wanted to watch a movie with her fiance’ and go home, and get married this February. That girl could be me, my friends, my sibling. (Yes, it is always the one that resonates with you that makes you angry — hundreds of women get raped in India on a daily basis, but the one I identify with most fuels my anger. I admit the hypocrisy — a writer has to be honest, or give up the pen.)

I want to fly out to New Delhi and get somebody, bash in a few heads. If this is hate speech, so be it.

Meanwhile, the rapes continue, even as we discuss them. Even in New Delhi, even as women protest on its streets. To 3-year olds, 16-year olds, 65-year olds. The protestors themselves are groped and molested.

I’m an angry writer, and after a few days of drought, I’m on a flood of fire. My dialogs spit venom, the guilty are tortured, not merely punished. I fight men on twitter (flouting my own vow of internet hiatus), who blame rape on women’s immorality. I chide friends who make sexist remarks. I debate with people who call it India’s “rape culture”. I even defend India’s men against a mass epithet of “rapists.”

I need to get a handle on this, calm down not only for my own sanity, or validity as a writer, but also because anger needs to be directed to be effective, or it is so much impotent rage. If I want to make a difference, boiling blood won’t help.

Or, perhaps, as an author I respect suggested to me on Facebook, perhaps it is the only thing that would. A writer needs to stay angry.

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Have you ever been this angry about something that has happened outside your own personal acquaintance? Has it affected your writing? What have you done about it?

Blogs I’ll NEVER Visit Again

Blogs I shall Never visit again

I’ll start with a confession: I’m not a model blog visitor in terms of the number of blogs I visit. I do 10-15 blogs a day at the max, other than in April, when I do more than 100 a day while hosting the A to Z Challenge. (If you don’t know about this challenge, I suggest you check it out.)

So for the 15 or so blogs I visit, I expect to be reading and commenting on all without a headache, and preferably within the hour. Not very ambitious, is it?

BUT. But.

I find some blogs that won’t let me do this. Not that anyone should care, but I have a headache from visiting my fair share of *such* blogs today, and I feel like listing out the sort of blogs I’ll never visit again:

1. Blogs with black backgrounds: You know the ones with an inky background, and light grey font? (I know you love Paranormal, but that doesn’t mean you have to torture your readers.) Or the ones with shiny pink or other neon colored fonts and icons on black? Flashy things in the sidebar? Not only would I never follow you, I would blacklist you if I could. I Love My Eyes, and won’t subject them to your blog.

2. Blogs that make me jump through hoops: If I like your post, I want to comment on it. If you make me cross-eyed with word verifications, or with the effort to find how to comment, or sign on to some vague service for the privilege, I’ll Pass. Thank You Very Much. Not following you either.

3. Blogs that do not believe in paragraphing: You might be the biggest Sherlock, Einstein or Dickens, but if you write in a dense chunk of 2000 words, my eyes would glide away after the first few lines. There’s a reason that Return key is there. Use it. I wouldn’t rush to the follow button on this.

4. Blogs written in terrible English: If you don’t have the time to learn the language you want to communicate with the world in, much less to proofread your posts, I don’t have time for you either. A few typos are acceptable (we’re all human), but not an entire glob of gobbledygook I have to try and make sense of. Next.

5. Blogs that thrive on controversy alone: I hate flame wars. Life is too short to indulge in negativity, to get attention or otherwise. Enough said.

Now that I’ve got it off my chest, I have to say that the sort of blogs I list above are in the minority. Or I’ve probably managed to weed them out of my blog circle. Mostly, I’m a happy camper, and I LURVE my blog buddies.  Sometimes, they are the only reason I blog.

Are there any blogs you would NEVER visit again? Is there anything on this blog that drives you crazy? Fire away in the comments!

Any Words of Advice for a Scrivener Noob? #IWSG

Insecure Writers!

It is Insecure Writer’s Support Group time, and I’m at a loss about what insecurity to post about. Which, I suppose, is a good thing.

I’m in this calm place where I can write without hope and without despair (The phrase is borrowed from writer friend Zafar Anjum, my sentiments echo his). I’m okay to just write and become better, let consequences take care of themselves. No expectations, no shortcuts, no anguish.

What I’m struggling with instead is Scrivener. Blog friend Corinne Flynn was one of the first people to recommend it, and I’ve got myself a trial version. But I haven’t taken her advice, which was to patiently sit through the tutorial — so I’m struggling with the simplest of tasks, like compiling documents. About ready to give up.

Anyone else have a (good or bad) Scrivener story to share? Words of advice for a Scrivener noob?

Should a Book Stab You, Or Make You Happy?

“I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound or stab us. If the book we’re reading doesn’t wake us up with a blow to the head, what are we reading for? So that it will make us happy, as you write? Good Lord, we would be happy precisely if we had no books, and the kind of books that make us happy are the kind we could write ourselves if we had to. But we need books that affect us like a disaster, that grieve us deeply, like the death of someone we loved more than ourselves, like being banished into forests far from everyone, like a suicide. A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us. That is my belief.”

— Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka and Books that Stab you

I read this quote today on Goodreads, and began discussing it with a few friends on Facebook. Opinions veered on one side or the other.

Personally, I think there will always be those who read to be provoked into thought, and those who read to escape. Both are equally valid reasons for reading, in my opinion, and I alternate between the two.

When it comes to my own writing, however, I aspire to Kafka’s recommended genre. I would die happy if  I could write books “that affect us like a disaster, that grieve us deeply, like the death of someone we loved more than ourselves, like being banished into forests far from everyone, like a suicide. A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us.”

What sort of book would You rather read? Why? And if you’re a writer, what sort of book would you rather write?