“You got it, you’re wow, wow, wow, wow”
Proofs read and corrections made, colours matched, and I pressed the button to make my books live on Amazon and Ingram Sparks at the end of August. My author copies ordered from Ingram Sparks and guess what Where Have You Come arrived first. That’s a sign, right? The story of our first-born son, the inspiration for my story, the reason I wrote the books in the first place.
When the other book arrived the only song that kept buzzing in my head was You got it, you’re wow, wow, wow, wow. I’m into you, I’m into you, I can’t resist. Okay, I know that song is about a guy and how he sends Kylie crazy with lust. But I keep picking the books up and reading a chapter and just holding them to my bosom, unable to let them go, like a newborn baby.
Opening the cover pulled me back to going to school and the first day back after the summer holiday. All those pristine and shiny books, no one else had touched before you. No-one had inked in a comment, turned the corner to mark the page, the smell of fresh ink.
It has been an incredible process; I have loved it and loathed it in equal parts. I still can’t believe it’s out in the wide world, copies in the British Library, at the Bodleian of all places. I’m sure they’re in some warehouse sitting on tall shelves. Like the storage warehouse you saw in X-Files, sterile hermetically sealed rooms. But I’m imagining them next to famous authors in the V section with the likes of Jules Verne and Voltaire. My imagination running wild. Someone coming across them so in the distant future and finding them there. “Oh, who is Saz Vora?” They flick through a few of chapters to see what’s written on the page, read the blurb, gaze intently at the cover. That’s how long it will take for someone in the bookshop to decide and it is very daunting, that whoever picks them up will decide on that read of that one chapter. I’m feeling a bit sick thinking about that right now. Let’s move on, shall we?
I’m sharing an extract for Where Have We Come, the book that arrived first in my head and in my mailbox last week. It’s the second book in my University- Reena and Nikesh Series.
The days merge together; the cold, dark, short days are slowly replaced with some brighter ones. We go to Walpole Park every day. I sit with Amar by the duck pond and stare at the black water to calm me down. Sometimes Nik will go for a walk around the pond, sometimes he’ll sit with me, his hands in his pockets, his eyes locked on the water.
At weekends our life is very different. We are very different; the children come to play with Amar, and we become the bubbly, happy couple they expect us to be. We always go to the park; the older ones run around playing tag while the younger ones go to the play area to ride on the swings and the animal-shaped spring riders. They all climb on the slides, shouting encouragement as they stand at the bottom. Nik takes Amar in the baby sling as he runs and plays with the children. Before we leave, we have to go to the petting zoo to see the baby animals, the rabbits, the ducklings, the chicks and the hamsters…
At times like this, I think there is nothing wrong with Amar and we will continue to go to the park and spend time with our son for years to come until he’s too big to want to go to see the animals.
This book is more Me Before You than Bollywood romance, sometimes not all stories have a happy ending.
DESIblitz Online Literature Festival in conversation with Rubeena Kaur Mehal
Wow wow wow again. I’m taking part in the DESIblitz Online Literature Festival on the 23rd September 8.00 08.30 pm BST, its free register by clicking on name. Spread the word there’s some talented authors, poets, journalist discussing their books and life as a writer.
Photograph of some, not all of the folders, versions of my writing and publishing process
Writing the Journey
The photograph is of some not all the steps of University – Reena & Nikesh Series, plenty more sitting on the computer drive and somewhere in the ethernet, stored in pen drives. I am not a pantster, writers who come up with an idea and then let it flow. I plan, I have a three-act structure with pinch points, inciting incidents, crisis and climax. I write on paper first, and when I’m thinking I hold a pen. The notebooks are where I write about a scene, a dialogue, sometimes a whole chapter, songs that come into my mind and play and play as Kylie did. It’s just how I work. Everyone writes differently, but I think the planning beat sheet helps me keep on track. My first draft for this book is very different, Nik is very different. The outcome of the story is very different. When I came back to the book years later and read through the draft again. I scrapped most of it, some scenes I kept. They are pivotal to what happened when our son was born but Reena’s voice stayed the same. I trained to be a designer and one of the things I’ve learnt is that you can and should scrap ideas that don’t work. It doesn’t mean that that idea has gone, it will come back but in another form. Trust in your writing and creativity.
Once you’ve written your story and you are happy with it show it to someone, let another person read it and ask them for feedback. Most people are kind, although I joined a creative writing course years ago and they shredded my writing to pieces, and I stopped. Put my chapters away. Now I think about that, and what I should have done was yeah. Maybe some of it is rubbish, but I know there’s something there. You will need to develop a thick skin, that’s what all writers say and to be quite honest not everyone will like your story. It’s okay, it’s okay for people to hate your story. You got an emotion out of them, isn’t that what storytelling is all about?
Sign up to my newsletter if you haven’t, I’ll include tips of my writing journey and have recipes, song lists, teaser of my next book, the story of Hema and Rahul, set in South of France, inspired by Jane Eyre.
When orphan Hema Pattni sees her ideal summer job in The Lady, she is confident that she will get it, but a conversation with her future employer Rahul Raichura sends her senses into turmoil. Will she get her summer in the South of France or will she have to return to the misery of her childhood home with her wilful aunt and her placid uncle?
Photograph of lavender field by Andrew Ridley - Unsplash.com