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.



Comments

Popular Posts