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Amrita Tripathi

Writer/ Founder/ Former Journalist

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Books by Amrita Tripathi

Blog posts May 2015

Of Reading, Reflecting and Travelling

I just got around to reading Akhil Sharma's Family Life -- what a phenomenal book. Gut-wrenching and yet so unassuming to start with. 

I think that's what the distinction between 'good' writing and whatever else there is out there -- trashy writing, flashy writing, pulp fiction, and everything in between -- really comes in. Good writing leaves an indelible imprint on your soul. It enriches you, somehow. Mind you, I have Murakami and Gaiman on this list too, so feel free to argue about literary fiction at any point in time. Good writing changes your soul or expands your mind, it makes you nobler sometimes, I find.

There's something about losing yourself, immersing yourself in an experience triggered by someone's talent and your own imagination. 

On the flip side, there's something about everyday life that forces you to lose yourself, every so often. Not sure how I feel about that. It's certainly not been an uneventful week or two...there's more travel coming up (potentially) and I just got back from a whirlwind trip to Bangkok, on a literary junket. While it was an incredible experience and quite surreal in bits, it was also a reminder of how you can get lost, or at the very least majorly distracted from what you want to be doing. Maybe if I spent as much time writing as I do now thinking about writing or talking about writing (the worst of the lot!), I'd be more fulfilled. 

Instead, here I am, staring at you. 

Long story short: I basically got on here to update a couple of the audio excerpts from my Mumbai launch, et voila! With huge thanks to Suresh Venkat and Denzil Smith, who agreed to read for us. 

(PS Drop me a line if you're also rambling, or wandering down similar lanes and bylanes.)

 

 

 

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Hoping for Readers...(Not a Zero Sum Game)

So, I hope you're having a lovely weekend, wherever you are. If you're lucky (like me) it's a long weekend :) 

And that reminds me, I've been meaning every so often to stop, smell them roses. It's a wonderful thing to be happy, innit? Even better to know it when you feel it!

And at some level, I think I was letting that whole book release thing play on my mind (Are sales happening? Will people find the book and read it? Are enough sales happening? Is there enough publicity? Have I created enough buzz? What am I not doing right?)

It goes on and on...an endless circle, an endless cycle. I almost forgot - hey, I wrote the book, it's time for me to withdraw from *that* part of the deal, especially because there is so very much I can't control. Yes, it really is on the author these days to publicise, create a buzz/ some sort of demand -- and those of you in my twitterverse will no doubt know, I've done what I can! Beyond that, I need to let go, because this is very crazy-making! 

Though there is one school of thought, that can be summarised as "If not you, then who?" Who else is going to care enough to ramp up attention? (Apart from the initial push by publishers and a launch event?) There is the school of thought that you can not do enough to push your book. But it's perhaps - as I need to remind myself - not "that" kind of book. I'm not the kind of author who is going to full-out market my book/ have a PPT on target audiences and so on (more power to those who can, and who can afford to take out ads etc)... I'm just going to have to hope it finds its readers. The Sibius Knot was an important book for me to write, and now it's written. The rest really is on you guys ... ie the universe!

Having said that, here's one review, with thanks to Mail Today. (I will one day be organised enough to have links to reviews, I'm sure of it! No call to be a lazybones about this!)

Let me know what you think! 

 

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