The tears of the second draft

Posted on May 13, 2013 by Rati Mehrotra

I just finished the first draft of a new 47000-word middle grade fantasy. “Tada!” I thought triumphantly as I tapped out the last line. Now I can relax and celebrate go back and read it and discover just how crappy it is.

I re-read Chapter 1 in growing disbelief. My word, I have a LOT of work to do! Correcting the POV issues and grammar is just a tenth of it. It’s not even ready for my sister, who has bravely volunteered to be a beta reader (ok, I ‘volunteered’ her. Same difference). Continue reading →

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Fact and fiction, truth and lies: Braco

Posted on May 8, 2013 by Rati Mehrotra
Braco

Cover image of Braco

“What you see is not true and what is true is not seen.” Violence and war in fiction can rarely match up to the sordid, devious reality of it. We cannot dream of the depths to which we humans can fall. This is what makes Lesleyanne Ryan‘s book Braco a truly compelling read. Although a fictional account, it is based on facts, and on the author’s own experiences as a peacekeeper in Bosnia during six months of the Balkans conflict in 1993/4. I’m not surprised that Lesleyanne’s Braco, winner of the Fresh Fish Award for Emerging Writers 2011, has now been shortlisted for the Margaret and John Savage First Book Award as well. Continue reading →

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Enchantment and escape: fantastic books

Posted on April 29, 2013 by Rati Mehrotra

Girl-Who-Circumnavigated-FairylandI just finished reading The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making by Catherynne Valente. What a delightful, charming, original book it is! I can’t recommend it enough. I am definitely looking forward to reading the rest in the series. That said, this is not a children’s book, although it has been marketed as one. More like a fairy-tale for adults, I think. Certainly not something I could have tackled at the tender age of ten. Or even twelve. Maybe that’s just me.

Continue reading →

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Earth Day comes round again

Posted on April 22, 2013 by Rati Mehrotra
Google Doodle Earth Day

Google Doodle Earth Day

Today is Mom’s birthday. Really. She’s 43 today. Well, actually closer to 4.5 billion, but who’s counting? What a pretty doodle Google has come up with today to celebrate! You can click on it and it will show the rising and falling moon, the cycle of the seasons, sweet fish, birds, flowers. For a few seconds you can almost forget the melting polar ice, vanishing forests, dying corals and the thousands of species that become extinct every year. Continue reading →

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Fragments of (non) sense

Posted on April 15, 2013 by Rati Mehrotra

Woe is me. Even my illustrator, the inimitable Amy, thinks I cannot write. “You use too many sentence fragments!” she scolds. “Try not to begin sentences with ‘and’ or ‘but'”.

But Amy! We don’t speak in complete sentences. Must I write in complete sentences? I don’t want to. And I will not. So there!

Of course, I don’t say this to her. I want her to be proud of this book. My (complete or incomplete) sentences, and her weirdly beautiful illustrations. Scowling, I scan the pages of my manuscript for yet another edit. Continue reading →

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Riddle me this

Posted on April 10, 2013 by Rati Mehrotra

Turandot‘The riddles are three, but Death is one’, Princess Turandot warns her suitor Calaf in Puccini’s famous opera Turandot. Undaunted, Prince Calaf answers all three riddles correctly:

What is born each night and dies each dawn? (Hope)
What flickers red and warm like a flame, but is not fire? (Blood)
What is like ice, but burns like fire? (Turandot!)

Riddling games, or wisdom-contests, are no longer a matter of life and death. Continue reading →

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Rejecting the Frivolous Cake

Posted on April 4, 2013 by Rati Mehrotra

titus-groanSome things are not meant to be analyzed. Poems and rejection slips, for instance. I stare at my latest editorial comment on “multiple points of view” and “episodic plot” and give up after a bit. The latest news from Galleycat is that a seventeen-year old has landed a 3-book deal with Random House. Obviously, I am too old for this game. I should have started in kindergarten.

Whatever. I turn to my favorite nonsense poem for solace, “The Frivolous Cake” by Mervyn Peake, a write of mad genius who penned the twisted Gormenghast books. He also illustrated Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, the Brothers Grimm’s Household Tales, and RL Stevenson’s Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Continue reading →

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The serial comma

Posted on March 29, 2013 by Rati Mehrotra

I know. Sounds a bit like “serial killer”, doesn’t it? My editor, the inestimable Marie-Lynn, returned my manuscript liberally streaked with red. “Inconsistent use of the serial comma,” she accused. “Do you know what I mean by a serial comma?”

Of course I didn’t. Life until then had been blissfully free of serial commas. But I hastily googled it.
Continue reading →

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Winnie the Pooh or zombies?

Posted on March 27, 2013 by Rati Mehrotra

A_Memory_of_LightJust finished reading ‘Memory of Light’, the fourteenth and last installment of the Wheel of Time series. THANK GOD IT’S OVER. Robert Jordan, RIP. Brandon Sanderson did a stellar job, though we wish it could have been you. Over 4 million words and as many bodies later, we can finally let go.The light illumine you.

Talking of body count, why does it have to be so high? It’s like every fantasy series out there tries to outdo each other in gruesomeness. Even YA has become grisly. Hundreds of thousands of limbs must be hacked away, and rivers of blood must flow, in order to sustain our interest.

I am reminded of something a Faerie says to Jackie, the fabled Jack of Kinrowan in Charles de Lint’s books. People believe more readily in the dark than they do in the light. Continue reading →

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Frog and faerie

Posted on March 22, 2013 by Rati Mehrotra

frogIn the last week, I have read “The Big Wide-Mouthed Frog” about 150 times to my three-year old. She never tires of it. “Again!” she shouts, with a grin as wide as the chirpy frog’s. I gnash my teeth and start anew: “Who are you and what do you EAT?” In the end the loud, rude frog makes a rather undeserved getaway from a slow, polite crocodile. Next time I have to read it, frog is going to get eaten.

To preserve my sanity, I have Charles de Lint’s magical “Jack of Kinrowan” to delve into. (And a whole bunch of fraying old Asimovs that I found in a corner of Afterwords.) Continue reading →

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