My first (collaborative) book – Journey so far and the path ahead

In the last 5 years, I have self-published couple of books exclusively for my family circle and an e-book on Blogchatter. Yet the possibility of working on a book for a global audience, and with a publishing house, from the scratch is always a first-time experience. Guess this is the novelty that keeps authors (and budding ones) to continue working on books and articles. Having engaged readers, like you, is always a pleasure, as it helps in improving my skills as a writer. 

I remember when I first saw the email from Let’s Author in July 2022 requesting me to get in touch with them, to get onboarded as an author for a parenting book titled How to Parent in a Crazy World. I thought that the email was a phishing email.

So the first step was to search for Let’s Author online, and to my surprise, I saw my college senior’s post on social media where she was backing an author for the book One for the Road. I still went ahead and ignored this email for almost a month or more. Suddenly in September 2022, I find the same message from Let’s Author on my LinkedIn messaging Inbox. This time I decided to engage with them. Given my personal & professional commitments, I let them know that until end of October 2022 there was no way I could spare time for this opportunity. Having said that, I wanted to, at the very least, have a conversation to understand what their proposal was. So, we decided to get on a call by end of September 2022 and from that point there has been no looking back. 

In December 2022, crowdfunding went live for this book. With no cohesion in the team, each of the initial collaborating authors spread the word of our book in our network, but the combined push was lacking and hence the crowdfunding did not take off, despite the immense value of the book. I was a bit disappointed. I decided to find out more about CEO of Let’s Author & the company, on LinkedIn, only to find that she was an alumni from my alma mater, BITS Pilani. Now the urge to connect with her was even stronger, when we were informed that the Lead Author had dropped off the project for personal reasons, and our book co-ordinator was also leaving Let’s Author.

The crowdfunding was supposed to close by 15th Jan 2023. I was told that if the pre-orders did not reach the target of 500, then this project will be scrapped. The pre-orders were the way to fund for the publishing of the book as well as see how well the book and its concept was received by the readers, a kind of a dip-stick survey of the public interest. The team that remained came together and got that extended, given that the lead author and book co-ordinator left us abruptly. 

Without any delay, I decided to bell the cat and sent an email to the entire team of remaining collaborating authors with a copy to Let’s Author asking for clarification on the status of this project along with highlighting the lapse in communication and cohesion within the team and coordination between the author team and Let’s Author publishing & marketing team. This paved the way for many changes to come including:

• A change in title of the book – Raising Children in a Changing World
• Moving into the Lead Author role for this new title, along with Jayne Ruff.
• While Jayne reworked on the concept of the book, by bringing clarity to its USP, we all brainstormed for additional chapters based on which we could source for collaborating authors & I handle the programme management aspects of the book.
• From the team of 5 who were remaining from the original project for which we came together, today we are a team of 12 collaborating authors, with each of them contributing one chapter to the book.

You can read about each of us and the chapter blurbs to know the value that we all are trying to bring to you through our book that has our parenting life stories on the crowdfunding page. The chapter blurbs can be found under the Content tab. 

What is the value that we are striving to bring to you through our effort?

Most parenting books available today are functional guides. Not a single one discusses how to become reflexive parents ourselves, attuned to our times. This is an emotional support book for parents raising kids in times of change and uncertainty. In an evolving world that’s fast-paced, unpredictable, ambiguous, and often different to our experienced childhoods, for better or worse. It’s a collection of honest and unfiltered stories from a group of international parents who hope that through openly sharing the highs and lows of their parenting journeys, they can offer reassurance, guidance, and friendship to others as they navigate theirs.

How do we plan on bringing this to you through our book?

• Sharing real-life, relatable stories about the different changes and choices facing parents today
• Offer a global perspective on parenting in a complex and ever-changing world.
• Provide practical advice based on personal experience on adapting and responding to the changes within and around us.
• Its honesty and diversity affirm that there is no one way of parenting but many.

Estimated Date of Publication/Book Launch: 30th October 2023

Here is a list of chapter titles you will see in the book:

• Chapter 1: Parenting Ourselves Before We Parent Our Children
• Chapter 2: Raising Happy Kids and Balancing a Meaningful Career
• Chapter 3: Being a 'Woke' Amma
• Chapter 4: Raising Gender Sensitive Kids 
• Chapter 5: Raising Kids in a Virtual World 
• Chapter 6: Parenting and Mental Health 
• Chapter 7: Parenting and Learning from My Special Needs Son 
• Chapter 8: Raising My Children While Re-Parenting Myself 
• Chapter 9: Raising Kids in A World Of Distraction And High Demand 
• Chapter 10: Raising a Kid as a Single Parent 
• Chapter 11: Supporting our Children through their ‘Coming Out’ Journey
• Chapter 12: Empowering from Birth

To read the chapter blurbs visit - https://payment.letsauthor.com/order?book=How-to-Parent-in-A-Crazy-World, click on Content tab, and the chapter title that you would like to glimpse. 

And if you are happy with what you are reading and would like to own a copy and support us in getting the book published, you can pre-order your copy as well by clicking on the Order Now button on the right panel. You can also see the names of the people who are backing us by placing the pre-orders under the Backers tab.

While the aspiration to write books has been a constant, this is the first time I am working with a team and I am enjoying this process of collaborative building of a book from it concept to the end product. Do visit book page and leave a comment here about what you think about our project. And do grab your copy by pre-ordering the same to learn from lived experiences of our parenting journeys to support you in yours. Do look us up on our socials and we will be happy to strike up a conversation on parenting challenges to arrive at better solutions to overcome /address them. 

The team is currently working on the individual chapters for the manuscript to be developed and sent to the publishing team in a couple of months to be on track for an October 2023 launch. 

This blog is part of Blogchatter’s:

• #CauseAChatter challenge, as this is one of the ways by which I am leaving behind my responsible #DigialFootprints as well as working together with the team for the benefit of the larger collective, not just the team benefiting by publishing, but carefully bringing authors and their respective parenting stories for the rest of the world to also benefit from their journeys and lessons.
• #TBRChallenge (#BookChatter) for the year 2023. Of course I am going to read my own book while building the manuscript as well as after. 

I also hope to see my book on the Blogchatter’s book review programme, but that is still a long time away as the book launch is only in October 2023. 

2022 - The Year That Went By

As we are gearing up to welcome 2023, many of us are eagerly making resolutions for the year that is yet to come, while some are looking back at the year that has gone by. As always, I decided to do the latter and this time, like in 2019, 2020, & 2021 (images below), I decided to record it here for me to be able to revisit it anytime in the future! 😃

We welcomed the year 2022 with my daughter making a premonition kind of statement, ‘Amma the coming year is 2022. 22 is 2 times 11. I just hope the year does not end up being 2 times the year 2011. Fingers crossed.’

My first reaction was horror because 2011 was one of the toughest until 2022 came to be. 😊That was the year when I was pregnant with my second-born son, dealing with the palliative care for my Father-in-law (FIL) in his final stages of cancer, playing the host for my sister-in-law during her laparoscopic surgery & recovery, Grihapravesam (calling it house warming kind of simplifies the concept as well the work involved in organising it), passing of my FIL, birth of my son, my post-partum, a beginning of the undoing of a marital relationship of a close family member, being a witness when the family was grieving that loss of its head (my FIL), moving into our new owned home. Did you also take a deep breath like I did when I finished typing this recap? 

Now to a rundown of the year 2022… It began with our family being affected with COVID in Jan 2022, when India was having its third wave, including my pregnant sibling who did an international travel in the hope to be with family to handle her pregnancy and delivery in India rather than staying in a foreign country, all by herself (with just her spouse for support). I joined Lurnable (a digital EdTech firm) as Operations Manager. I became a facilitator of the programme #IamRemarkable (a Google Initiative) and have also conducted two workshops this year. We had a scare in April for a really pre-mature labour that might have been critical for the child for sure, and to the mother (mentally and emotionally). We had a few hospitalisations for my Mom, Sister & her Spouse, and my Aunt. Health-related issues that come and go for our ageing parents. Loss of lives – 2 within the family and one a child (less than 15 yrs old) who was a close buddy of my son in our gated community, a beautiful soul who always stood up against playground bullies (for my son) and had deep conversations on the concepts of care, right & wrong, integrity and more. Of course, my niece was an addition to the family as a healthy child who decided to stay full term after the initial scare, sharing the same star sign as my son. They both bonded instantly and every time they are together, the mutual love and adoration is a pleasure to watch.

I became a homeowner. I wrote my first semester exams for my M.Sc Counselling Psychology (2 year Masters course) that I am currently pursuing. I published an e-book on Blogchatter and have been roped in on another authoring project by Let’s Author to collaborate with a few more authors for the book ‘How to Parent in a Crazy World – Life Lessons on New Age Parenting’ to be published sometime next year (Click the link to pre-order the book). Amidst all this, we transitioned from a pandemic lifestyle to a post-pandemic new normal (whatever that means)… and the craziness has not ended yet. 

And in all this, I also managed to hold on to my reading. Thanks to Blogchatter’s TBR Challenge, this year I tracked the books that I read (which probably only covers 50% of what I read). Another big sigh…

While this year probably looked twice the challenge of the year 2011, it has been a mixed bag, which can be said about almost any year that comes and goes. I resonate very strongly with the Yin-Yang symbolism, a philosophical concept that describes opposite but interconnected forces. While the literature on Yin-Yang philosophies & interpretations is available in abundance, my simplified explanation for this is in the lines of the dialogue from Alavandhan Movie ‘Kadavul Paadhi Mirugam Paadhi kalandhu seidha kalavai naan’ (crudely translated – I am the perfect mix of God & Animal/Devil). The deeper meaning that I infer is that there is no absolute good or absolute bad in this world. There is a little bit of good in bad and a little bit of bad in good and these two exist in perfect balance for the whole to be complete. Here the good and bad can be represented in black or white colour, and the symbolism stays intact.

In this exercise of looking back at the year gone by, which I have been doing since 2019, I have come to understand that every year brings with it a mixed bag of experiences – a few successes, a few misses/loses, loads of learnings from both to take away for the years to come, wonderful experiences that enrich our life by becoming stories & narratives to tell and take forward. I am filled with gratitude and pride. Gratitude for the learnings and achievements, pride at surviving the year. I think I am going to hold on to this practice of looking back at the year that has gone by just so that I practice self-love and self-appreciation which in turn positively impacts self-image and self-confidence by increasing self-awareness. What better way to enrich our mental wellness than this. 😊

I am not the type to make resolutions, but I guess the practice of looking back at the year that has passed, that I began in 2019, is a resolution that happened on its own accord and will probably stay for years to come. Will be happy to hear your retrospective of 2022 in the “comment” section.

Wishing you all a very happy new year 2023 to come, and along with it a lot of personal/professional growth & development also. 

 

This post also wraps up the #TBRChallenge by Blogchatter for the year 2022. I'm participating in the #TBRChallenge by Blogchatter

A Potpourri of Drabble by Harshita Nanda

I was hearing the word Drabble for the first time. I am a fan of the way Harshita spins her stories, full of emotions, twists and turns, and social messages. It was a no brainer that this would be on my reading list. I had the time of my life reading through the 100 drabbles that are part of her book aptly named A Potpourri of Drabble. 

This collection of drabble brings with it a potpourri of stories filled with social message, highlighting the social conundrum, hypocrisy, irony, manipulation, love in all its form and more. In 100 words she spins a beautiful picture not just about the characters, but also their background, emotions, the event that is unfolding and, in some cases, even the back story. While the stories themselves are complete, it also leaves you wanting to read more about the incidents of the characters who appear in the drabble. 

Cover page of A Potpourri of Drabble by Harshita Nanda

The story titled Kitchen was most gut wrenching and highlights one of the most sinister issues in many homes, yet the least discussed societal evil. While awareness is quite high about what constitutes domestic violence many do not understand how to deal with the issue when it unfolds right up close to them – in their neighbourhood, friends’ homes, within family relations or even inside one’s own home. Understanding the various layers and kinds of domestic abuse/violence and knowing how to address them for self and others is a high time necessity. With just 100 words, Harshita not only spun the story, she also was able to express the trauma that Sheela endured due this societal evil. 

The closest to my heart is The Hidden Power. It highlights the power of Humanity above all. If that is alive, then there is a meaning to our lives on this planet. 

The Red Nail Polish was another one of my favourites, that brought out the importance of guilt free self-indulgence and the humaneness of inclusivity in extending the same courtesy to those who make our lives easier every day. 

The Messy Room brought out the ugly facet of our lives that differentiates based on social status. It was soul stirring to read this reality that is still very much existent even in today’s times. 

In Malini from Who Is Saner?, I saw a bit of myself. To know what I mean, do read this story and then my blog on My Volunteering Journey.

I just could not help but smile when I read A Bowl Full of Gulab Jamuns, remembering my younger days when I used to feel similar urge when I saw a Boondhi Laddoo. Now I would like to think I have a little more control or at least learnt to regulate that urge.

The last few stories that were inspired from the happenings of the 2 years of pandemic life were hard to ignore. The most soul ripping one was Time was Running out. How many families went through similar realities during those two years of lockdown lifestyle enduring hardships that we never thought could be possible. Many lives lost, affected, and damaged beyond repair. A time when many of us felt trapped and stifled inside our homes yet itched to do something to lessen these traumatic experiences of complete strangers, through our network, writing, or any other means. Glimpses of humanitarian efforts gave us hope that the fire of humanity is still burning.

Do download Harshita Nanda's A Potpourri of Drabble, published as part of the Blogchatter's Ebook carnival at - https://www.theblogchatter.com/download/a-potpourri-of-drabble-by-harshita-nanda and give it a read. You might find your own favourites and relate to a few stories as your own too. 

You can also download my book - Free Rein to Thoughts – a collection of quotes & shorts highlighting the colours and patterns of life at - https://www.theblogchatter.com/download/free-rein-to-thoughts-by-aarthi-prabhakaran

This blog is part of the #BlogchatterEbook carnival & #TBRChallenge