Tag Archives: roses

Feb13

Hearts for Valentine

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And other stories from Twelve Roses for Love

It took me a while to pick up the courage to narrate the stories for the audio versions of Twelve Roses for Love. I must thank Monisha Gumber for giving me the opportunity, in the first place to even consider doing audio versions of the stories, and in the second to encourage me to “go for it” and do the narration. 

After a few tries, the first story I narrated was La Blue Luncheonette. I thought the whole thing had to be done in one “take”. So, I sat down with a glass of water and after a few tries I got it all into one continuous recording. Phew! It was only after she complimented me on, “doing it all in one go,” did I realise that I didn’t have to. 

When it came to narrating Hearts for Valentine, I was much more at ease about the mechanics of the recording. However, the story is a bit of a tear-jerker and I worried that I might break down while narrating it.

I must confess that while doing the recording I did succumb to the words and the emotion of the moment (isn’t that what method actors do?). But… technology to the rescue! I stopped. Got my emotions under control. Used a few handy tissues. Had another sip of water and carried on. The audio expert who puts the visual and audio versions together has the necessary equipment to fix these stumbles and I think we have a good smooth rendition.

We have chosen several stories from the collection but haven’t translated all of them into audio versions. If you like these stories, I think you’ll thoroughly enjoy the others in the book. Trust me, although this is a collection of tales centred around the theme of love, they aren’t all about romantic love, there’s even one in there that I think will have you holding your sides laughing! 

Feb13

Self-Publishing trials, horrors, and maybe success?

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Self-Publishing trials, horrors, and maybe success?

I was forced into it. 

My independent publisher in the UK (Ex-L-Ence Publishing) decided he needed to close down. What was I going to do? My childhood dream of becoming an ‘author’ was about to go up in proverbial fumes. ‘Oh that this too, too, solid, etc.’ except of course e-books aren’t really solid. You get the drift, basically ‘waaaah’.

            Followed by a deep breath. A long hard look in that reflective material called a mirror that just throws light rays back at you and usually does nothing to encourage contemplation other than, ‘oh dear, I need to go to the salon’. But in this instance, followed by a “No! I will, I shall, I must…”

            Thankfully, Robert Agar-Hutton the publisher, and another Ex-L-Ence author Bob Cubitt – so filled with the milk of human kindness his cup ran over- provided us abandoned authors with a self-publishing guide. 

            The opening lines were so comforting I almost fell asleep… admittedly it was 2 a.m. Trust me, when you think about approaching something as daunting as a dragon, and you read the lines, “If you are only going to publish an e-book, this isn’t difficult…” said dragon is rapidly transformed into a puppy. Bob’s step by step instructions, literally just five steps, encouraged me to take the leap and I went to Amazon’s Getting Started page. 

            All went well until I inserted the header. At first, I was ambitious. I wanted it to have my name on the even pages and the book’s title Twelve Roses For Love on the odd pages. I also made the mistake of adding the cover to the Word document. This screwed everything up as the header kept appearing on the cover page. Several sessions of frustration resulted in fist banging on the desk to taking a walk and yelling select expletives at MSWord, KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing), and other inanimate objects that I sincerely believe regularly conspire to confound us. Eventually, I settled for a simple header and, tbh as they say these days, I don’t quite know what I did but the header issue was resolved. Sorry, but if you’re reading this in the hope that it’s a guide, then you are sadly mistaken. Also does anyone know how to delete a blank page in MSWord? The new version just will not let me do it.

            Here’s where young Glen Stansfield (yes, Glen, in my book you are young) provided some real-time excellent support and why I’ve acknowledged him in my paperback version. Great advice on what to do if I wanted to insert a little rose at the end of each story. Cheesy? A little! But, what the hey. Also instant advice on what to do if I wanted to upload a re-laid out version of the ‘book’ (it’s just 61 pages, so not sure if it’s a book or a pamphlet). 

            The cover. KDP does offer some cover templates but they just didn’t work for me. So, good old Canva. I love Canva. I mixed and matched a couple of free templates and created a cover, downloaded a jpg version and used that for the cover. Worked a dream on the Kindle version, but it needed a lot of adjusting and fiddling to get it right for the paperback. A few more headaches and hand-wringing and I decided to use one of their templates with the e-book jpg as an image for the front. What to do? Ce’s la vie! 

            Glory- be! Success. It was accepted. And I’ll only know if I have got the hang of it properly when I do it again. 

            If you’d like to check out and (maybe, pretty please) buy this little volume, click here.

Jul19

In memory of my mother

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July 18th was my mother’s birthday. Every year it rolls around and every year I think of her. She was a major influence in my life and today I think I have the strength to post the eulogy I wrote for her. I wasn’t able to attend her funeral or her memorial service, so my sister read this out to the scores of people who came to pay their respects to her.

TO MY MOTHER

“Woman, behold thy son, behold thy mother.” That was one of my mother’s favourite quotations from the Bible. For son, I think we can all read ‘child’. The other was the Good Friday hymn, ‘At the cross her station keeping, stood the mother gently weeping’. For her these were like guiding lights. And, she was above all else a mother, as fiercely maternal as a Bengal tigress. I think she would have liked the metaphor – no, she’d correct me, that’s a simile. And, although many of us in our family were at the receiving end of her particularly well-honed tongue, I think I can confidently say that we had all also been at the receiving end of her maternal care. She has comforted, helped, taught and just plain ‘been there’ for more people than I think I’ll ever know. A little thing could move her from being a towering inferno to a tower of strength. And only ma could get away with combining both.

Speaking for myself, she taught me everything, from school lessons to the big one about life. Not so much by what she said as by her actions. From as far back as I can remember she embodied what today people would call ‘feminism’. She didn’t hang a name on it. She just went out there and did it. I’ve seen her playing squash in a sari. I believe she played a deft game of tennis and badminton too. She swam, unembarrassed, in a swimming pool at a time when we rarely saw other women even get into the water. She drove a car long before we saw other ladies drive, at any rate in some places in India places like Bangalore and Jamnagar way back in the 1950s. She was a strong woman with very definite views and we secretly nicknamed her sergeant major.

Thanks to her, we had boyfriends and broken hearts and she was always, I now recall, not obtrusively there, but there; with her ‘there’s many more fish in the sea’ wisdom. Afraid as we often were of her, we knew that we had no stronger champion when it came to doing something new, different and perhaps not popular with the older generation of my time. I remember her interest in theatre. She took part in a play for which I helped her learn her lines but I wondered how she could stand up in front of all those people. She gave me an interest in Art, and took us to dozens of art exhibition that we enjoyed and they weren’t school trips. Books, we shared. I recall my mother giggling out loud over a book called Aunty Mame and then laughing over it myself. Poetry. And with the passing years I’ve found myself digging around in the garden finally coming to her enjoyment of plants and the regeneration that they represent.

Today, more than anything else, that’s what she would like us to celebrate: the regeneration of her love. Growing, and like the earth, giving forth of its bounty, where our tears are merely the rain which makes flowers called Smiles, Laughter and that most beautiful rose of all, the one that’s called Remembrance.

Aug13

CHANDRIKA’S TRICK

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Long, long ago King Jagata, which means the world, lived happily with Queen Dharti Matá whose name means Mother Earth. Together they lived in a palace somewhere in northern India.

They were such happy people that every time they laughed the sunbeams danced. The courtiers and the servants smiled and sang to themselves as they went about their duties.

Way back then, the seasons were mild and they came and went, as they should. Everyone was happy. Everyone that is, except lonely Chandrika, the moon queen. She was fine for a few years living alone up in the dark night sky. And for a while she quite enjoyed being the Queen of the night.

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