Wednesday, December 4, 2019

My 2019 Achievements and December IWSG Post




I still can’t believe that this is the last IWSG of 2019. The year has flown past at super sonic speed. Luckily for me, I have written loads and loads this year for the newspapers for different sections, submitted a lot of books to different publishers, participated in two competitions (the results are yet to come), judged the IWSG Anthology competition, my new monthly column Grammar Guru will start in January in Children’s World Magazine (I have already submitted the columns for the entire year). I also attended my first children’s literary festival as a speaker in November and both my sessions went phenomenally well. I have also done a few school visits this year and my publisher (HarperCollins) was happy with the book sales. I also came to know that my Scholastic book 'Lazy Worm Goes on a Journey' is now a part of supplementary reading in schools and has a workbook along with it. Professionally I’m quite pleased with 2019. 

With a little bit of planning and time management, I managed to do all this, but sadly I had to restrict my blogging days to only IWSG posts. IWSG (Insecure Writers Support Group) is a fabulous online group of writers who post on the first Wednesday of the month. Most of our IWSG posts are focused on our writing anxieties and concerns. The IWSG website is a treasure-trove of writing and publishing information.

IWSG was started by one of my favourite bloggers - Alex J Cavanaugh, Alex has several bestsellers to his credit: CassaStar, CassaStorm, CassaFire and Dragon of the Stars. I just hope someone turns these amazing books into movies.

December 4 question - Let's play a game. Imagine. Role-play. How would you describe your future writer self, your life and what it looks and feels like if you were living the dream? Or if you are already there, what does it look and feel like? Tell the rest of us. What would you change or improve?

If I was living the dream, all my books would be on the bestsellers’ lists, I would probably have 2 books out every year, frequently do book tours, my book signing sessions at literary festivals would be standing room only, and all my books would go into reprints a few months after the books were launched. Let’s not forget the movie rights, the merchandizing rights etc of my books, which would be raking in the moolah.

Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year in advance to all of you.