So this month's featuring authoress is ' Rubina Ramesh'
Can
you tell us a little about yourself? Your profession and your hobbies!!
First of all Dipali, it’s great
to connect with you. I am a housewife – tied to my family through thick or thin
you could say. It’s not by choice – far from it. I moved to the USA and found
out that as a spouse I had no work permit. And it was then my long lost love for writing
revisited me.
My profession has been very
erratic even if I have a MBA degree from Liverpool University. Being a
traveller due to my husband’s work, I could never have a career perse.
Sometimes a teacher, sometimes a coder and most of the time a dreamer. Not a
great career graph as I would have liked to have but travelling compensated
that urge to do something in me. I loved going with my hubby wherever his work
took us. From Léon in France to old
towns of Netherlands. If life ever gives me a second chance, there is nothing I
would like to change at all.
And all through this, the only
constant companion I had were books. So it didn’t come as a surprise to anyone
that I picked up the pen.
Questionnaire with Rubina Ramesh
1.
How did you first get involved in with writing, are you an
imaginative person?
Oh yes! My imagination is wild.
Often I have to curb it or I might end up in a looney bin. Once I had a fight
with my mom. Those teenage kinds of fights you have when you want to wear blue
and your mom insists on a red. So in my anger I wrote a story where I had
travelled off to Mars and found a new mom. My mom read the story and I saw a
tinge of tears in her eyes, even though she loved it. I felt guilty and it took
me many days to assure her that she was the best mom a girl can have. But years
later that story did get published in an anthology called Writings from The
Heart. But whenever I read that story of mine, I still remember my mom’s eyes,
full of unspoken accusations. I felt so guilty for creating a mom in Mars :D
2.
What do you find most challenging about your writing?
I am a romance writer but every
time writing about a Boy meeting a Girl and them having an issue and solving
that becomes very monotonous for me. So I need something more in my stories.
It’s that search for ‘something more’ that makes my life tougher.
3.
What do you do when you are not writing?
I love marketing. And it’s a
very evolving line. I don’t market only my books but also that of my peers.
It’s almost meditative for me to create webpages, images for the books and
other graphic works. Sometimes I feel I have a soul of a trapped painter in me
who was guillotined for making some horrendous paintings. :D See, this is what
you get for asking me if I am imaginative. Haahahahah…
4.
Where do you see yourself in the next 6 months, and 5 years down the
road?
Hopefully writing. But people
like me live at this moment. I don’t know what I will do tomorrow so how can I
plan my next 5 years. Life has taught me never to plan because planning means
taking other peoples’ likes and dislikes and their need into consideration and
that I have found is never static.
5.
How do you keep coming up with material / content for your story?
From life itself. And then
adding the heavy dose of my imagination. For eg. In my book Finding the Angel,
the story came from a newspaper article of stolen faberge egg. After that it
was all my imagination. My romances come from my life – nope not from multitude
affairs :D but how I met my hubby or some small incident that took place during
our courtship. For eg. Once I wore a rather short dress and one of his
relatives saw me. They made a comment which made me write the story of Lolita
where the backless girl on the cover is not about nudity but about how clothes
don’t make a woman and you can’t judge a person with the habits they have.
6.
Any specific tips you have for new writers who want to make it big
in the world of published books?
By writing good books? Is there
any other way? Having said that I often see young authors going for buy backs
and all that craziness. I have only one principle which I follow while I write
as an indie author – my dashboard should speak of profit. So expenditure should
always be less than my income. If they can do that, then they will be motivated
to write more or their expenditure will make them a one book wonder.
7.
What’s the best thing a writer can give to his readers?
Honesty. Your writing should
reflect your honesty. It can’t be taken from here and there and copy pasted as
your own writing. Writing comes from your heart. If that is compromised, then
you are a business person and your agenda is not about writing.
8.
A lot of people are interested in writing for the money earning
potential. What are some tips for people interesting in making money from
writing? What are some realistic expectations in regards to what can be made?
I love this question. When I
see youngsters coming to this world they are shocked at the money they make (or
lack of it) I will speak about self-published authors, since that’s what I am.
We hardly make money in our first book but with the publishing of consecutive
books, we do make money if we know how to promote ourselves. Each of us earns
in different slabs depending on the number of words we write and the genre we
write in.
9.
What motivates you most in life?
Waking up every morning with a
smile. Knowing I have a story to tell. And most of all when my kiddos go to
school and tell their friends – My mom is an author. That does something to my
heart. It’s my moment of feeling different from others. Special.
10.
What are your views on increasing plagiarism?
Plagiarism is like a virus that
is spreading its tentacles in our writing world. And it’s a two way street.
Sometimes plagiarism really happens and other times, it’s a tool used to
promote your books. But when a writer does plagiarise others, she might not be
ever caught but deep inside she will always know that she is no more a writer.
That itself is punishing enough for a writer and after that the humiliation of
the world knowing what you did follows. So here a writer has to make a
deliberate choice if she wants to go down this particular path.
Thank you Dipali for these
interesting questions. Looking forward to reading your website for many more
interesting posts.
.jpg "BOOK REVIEW - “IT HAPPENS FOR A REASON” BY PREETI SHENOY")
