Authors Electric

                                                            I am a neurodivergent tutor, businesswoman, performer and writer. I am very successful in all of these areas, even winning awards, yet I mask my very real struggles every day, leading to disbelief and gaslighting. So what are the realities of a ‘hidden disability’ for this ‘Superwoman’?   I know some of you won’t believe me, so maybe I am wasting my ink, but I struggle everyday with some aspect or other of daily life, and what you see in articles, professional life and on social media is only the tip of the iceberg. Yes, I appear to be quite annoyingly successful at everything I do. But the next time you call a person like me ‘Superwoman’, imagine that I am also battling with Kryptonite on a daily basis.   In 2018, I was diagnosed with Autis...

                                                                      I consider the ups and downs of being a freelance businesswoman and creative, and why it is sometimes a battle to be taken seriously. It’s a stormy day in what promises to be a sweltering summer, and am I relaxing with my feet up on this ‘day of rest’? Don’t be silly, I’m self-employed! Time off? You must be joking! Whilst you nine-to-fivers can make plans for the weekends and evenings, every time I do something other than my actual job, I lose money. So, I work seven days a week, every evening and a bit of Saturday and Sunday morning. Yes, I love what I do, and you know what they say – if you love what you do you never work a day in your life. Well, it sure feels like hard work sometimes, I can tell you. ...

  I recently watched an online clip of Robbie Williams making an acceptance speech for an award. He’d ‘like to thank drugs, alcohol, ADHD, anxiety, addiction, body dysmorphia’ – (and a whole host of other crippling conditions) ‘without which none of this would have been possible’, he tells us. Yes, it was funny, but as an author who is also a performer, I found myself relating to that strange dichotomy between self-deprecation and loud obnoxious drama-queen. You may think that we lie when we describe ourselves as socially awkward and shy – after all, we jump up to show off with the most massive egos at every opportunity. We can’t wait to grab the limelight in a blaze of ridiculous costumes and glitter – and in my case giant gold wings! But I’m here to tell you that underneath every mammoth motor-mouth is a quieter, sensible and often anxious human being. Just consider how many people in show-biz are addicts, alcoholics, reclusive, exercise junkies, dysfunctional, depressed – or use...

I was away for more than a month on book tour for You Beneath Your Skin . Back home I thought the plants were drying up, but clearly not. The better half had been taking care of them. Other than, well, pruning. Result: three pumpkin vines running riot playing tag in my tiny balcony, throwing out incandescent yellow blossoms as they climb up other shrubs, railings, pots. (I come from a part of India that has figured out the art of not letting any part of an edible plant go to waste, so of course we eat flowers. Pumpkin flowers, to be exact. We eat the leaves too, but that's a story for another time.) I'd returned grimy and exhausted from an overnight flight, but these pieces of yellow light brought back too much nostalgia. I washed my hands, and then out came a packet of chickpea flour. I mixed it in with salt, water, and a pinch of baking soda for a super-quick batter. Harvested the blossoms, tore out their egg-yolk-orange stamens, dipped them in batter and let the...

I'm a new entrant to the Authors Electric group of writers/ bloggers.  Not just that, I'm also new at this thing called authoring.  My debut literary crime novel You Beneath Your Skin is due out on the 17th of September, 2019 with Simon & Schuster IN. As anyone who has done this can probably imagine, my life is all mayhem at the moment. So many uncertainties, to-do lists a mile long, everything running way behind schedule. When I started writing more than a decade ago, I hadn’t a clue a writer’s life could be like this. Naively, I just wanted to tell stories, enjoy writing them, and maybe share with a few friends. Wanting to learn better, I went ahead and joined workshops, communities, took classes. My writing improved, I began to have stories published in anthologies and journals. Then I made a decision that changed my life. Writing a novel. Again, as novelists know, it is an agony and an ecstasy, a marathon (unless you get one ...

Book Signing - Beans in the Belfry, Brunswick, Maryland No, not Time Travel. That's a perfect example, right there, of why commas are important. Firstly, apologies for my lack of posts lately. This does not indicate my lack of willingness to post but my ability to lose track of time. I should post on the 16th of every month but the deadline goes whizzing past at a great rate of knots and there's another month gone. Who else feels like trying to keep track of time is like counting grains of sand in the Sahara? I'm sure there are more than a few hands up there. Maybe some of you have 2 hands up. That refers to the first part of my title - Time.  The second part - Travel - is what I am doing at the moment. I am on a book tour of the United States. I am doing book signings and speaking at conferences in several states. You'd think I would have even less time to write blogs or keep track of deadlines. You would be wrong. It appears when I travel I have a lot more...

I'm  a writer who's been living on the edge of her one remaining nerve for the past couple of months. The look of panic on my face, as deadlines came screaming towards me, was something to behold. Did you note the plural nature of my word choice? Not deadline, but deadlines. Somehow, I got through them all, and was able to take a deep breath and relax. What did I learn in the process? The answer is I learned a lot, hence the reason I am able to give you this sage advice regarding deadlines.   1. Start early and give yourself time to do the task. Agreeing to write a 90,000 word novel by next week may seem like a good idea. Trust me, it aint. Full disclosure here, that's not what I did. It's an example.  2. Keep a detailed planner of when to do what. This may sound simple but setting clear blocks of time for each project will help you manage your deadlines.  3. Remember there are only 24 hours in the day. Filling up your diary with other projects or ev...

I am sure the whole world knows that Christmas is upon us. Everyone is chasing their tails trying to get ready for the big day, or two days if you celebrate on boxing day as well. I am no different to anyone else. My days have been filled with present buying, card writing, turkey buying, and a search for all the endless trimmings that go with a turkey dinner. What's this got to do with writing I hear you ask. Bear with me, I'm getting there. I have the added joy of being an author. This means that my Christmas has been full of book signings as well as all the usual parties and frivolities. Okay, my book signings are full of frivolity as well. I'll give you that.  The title of my post is Deck the Halls. Well it's not quite deck the halls today, but certainly dressing me. I have appeared in a number of guises throughout the festive period. In the photo above I was signing books at a local shopping centre. The picture above is me dressed as a smiling santa, comple...

Wendy Jones talks about her book, Killer's Countdown Things have been very exciting for me recently as my first book, Killer's Countdown, was launched in November last year. If you are about to launch your first book, or are even writing your first book, I can assure you it is a heady feeling. It is also a whirlwind ride. In the midst of all this euphoria I also had to bear in mind that somehow or other I had to let the public know that my book was out and readily available. Now that was a sobering thought. So what have I learned about marketing in the midst of all the fun and excitement. I thought I would write this in order to help others. 1. Gradually build the level of interest. Having been reading about writing and marketing for some time, I was aware that marketing starts long before the book is hot off the press. It is important to build up excitement and anticipation so that people are waiting for it's arrival. The minute I started writing the book it wa...

One of the great things about being an independent author is the freedom of choice; you can choose your author name and book titles with impunity. One of the great hazards of being an independent author is the freedom of choice; you can choose an author name or a book title in ignorance and sabotage your chances of success. This freedom of choice can find the tiniest chink in an author’s self-confidence and subject them to flag in the wind decisions on all kinds of aspects of publishing. When sales are disappointing the independent author often jumps to a conclusion that isn’t based on fact. No one is buying the book because the cover is crap; so change the cover. No one is buying the book because the blurb stinks; rewrite the blurb. People are not drawn to the title; choose a new title. Nobody wants to buy something written by an obviously made-up name; choose a new pen name. Re-invent everything because you got it wrong the first time. Or did you? I’ve seen perfe...