Writer Wednesday: 10 Fun Facts About An Awfully BIG Adventure
Fairy Tales
Even since I was a little
girl I loved fairy tales. It was one of the first books that I ever read by
myself. Granted it was a book of fairy tale retellings, and the prints were in
large. That’s when my obsession with fairy tales started. When I started coming
across fairy tale retellings, I knew it was on my list of things to do for sure.
An Awfully BIG Adventure therefore has always been at the back of my mind.
Evernote
I wrote the novella
entirely on the Evernote App. It was paired with my laptop and my phone. So
every time I would finish writing a chapter, it would automatically get synced.
It saved me the harassment of always backing up my newly written document all
the time. Because I was working full time then and I used a different device at
work and a different one at home. Evernote helped me keep track of my work
without going completely insane.
Metro Journeys
A lot of the chapters were
written during the time I would commute to and from work on the metro. The other
time I wrote was from 2 pm till 3 pm which used to be our lunch break at the
BEE Books office. Also, I nearly missed my stop once while going to work
because I got so carried away writing dialogue between the Queen and Tanay.
Yoshita and Tanay
They are stepsiblings who
are learning to let each other into their lives. I didn’t want to write
half-siblings because it would ruin the story a little. Besides, since I was
planning to write this as a series from the onset, Tanay needed be her
stepbrother. It was fun developing their characters too.
Yoshita the Realist
Yoshita’s disillusion with
magic and happily ever after mirrored my own. I wasn’t at a great place when I
started writing the story. I realized that I was just coming to terms with
being a realist and that was something I lived vicariously through her.
Once Upon A Time
Even though I have always
wanted to write a fairy tale retelling of my own, watching Once Upon A Time
really pushed me towards pursuing the dream more seriously. I started to think
about all the potential characters I could use in my novella and thus came up with
the plot for An Awfully BIG Adventure.
Rejection from Penguin
A friend of mine was so
impressed with the story that she actually tried to get Penguin take on the
project. The news that came was this was a story that has been done and redone.
Since it was basically old wine in new bottle, it was a risk. And they didn’t want
to take that risk.
BUZZ Magazine
I was at my wit’s end
wondering how to generate funds for BUZZ Magazine when I remembered this
novella sitting quietly at the corner of my laptop. I brought it out, revised
it, edited it to the best of my efforts and started preparing for its launch.
Kindle Direct Publishing
This was the second time I
would be publishing a book through KDP. I was wiser after my mistakes from last
time. I had learned how to properly format a book for KDP too, and I was armed
with all the right files that individual book reviewers might demand. In the
process, I had learned e-book formatting.
Social Media Content Creation and Marketing
My experience with working
as a social media content creator and manager helped me make a plan for An
Awfully BIG Adventure and I ran a campaign for it on my social media accounts.
Even though we didn’t sell as many books as one might have hoped, it was fun
working on a project from scratch.
