A couple of years have passed since I released my debut thriller introducing Detective Raya Ray. While I started writing the next in the series soon after and was signed on by one of India’s leading literary agencies, The Book Bakers, I wanted to create a puzzle to challenge Raya and also the reader’s crime-solving skills. Dissatisfied with two manuscripts, I decided to move away from the book and enrolled for my third master’s, MFA in creative writing, in Nov 2019. Post-completion of the course, I had a fresh perspective of looking at a new Raya Ray story.
With Suhail from The Book Bakers
‘Diary, Deceit, and Death – Raya Ray Returns’ took shape in the form of a manuscript, which The Book Bakers successfully placed to one of the country’s top publishers Vishwakarma Publications.
After three months of writing and editing my second Detective Raya Ray novel, I was finally ready to take the next step. So, on Tuesday afternoon, I initiated the process of mailing a document set related to the book to my literary agent. While there are many steps before the final version is published both in paperback and e-book format, I’m glad that I could give Raya a challenging case to crack. Coincidentally, it is also my birthday month.
The second Raya Ray novel (tentative title)
Since March’21, the doctor husband is back to his erratic schedule. I’m left with no choice but to raise the kid single-handedly once again. Shuttling between anxiety and helplessness, writing this book was my survival strategy. It also helped that I had my strongest support system in my brave five-and-a-half-year-old, who has barely met his father six times in sixty days. His interest in my project is beyond inspiring.
But I must also confess that the kid is a tough taskmaster. No reporting authority in my erstwhile corporate career has ever sought a status update of my work at a frequency of every half-an-hour, like this child. Phew! I’m quite glad that he has decided to shift his focus to Enid Blyton’s Mr. Noddy for the time being.
Mr. Noddy saves the day
It is a tough time to live in. In the last couple of weeks, I’ve heard close friends lose their loved ones. I wasn’t even sure if I should put up an update on the book, especially when we are struggling to survive. But, art is a great survival strategy as well. It takes away our grief, worries, and hopelessness momentarily and gives us reason to dream of a better world. With a ray of hope in my heart that this too shall pass, I go back to balancing my role as a mother and a writer. Someday, I wish to write a book on what it means to be the wife of a frontline warrior.
Stay safe, stay home (if possible), take care, and wear a mask. We need to break the chain. Stay tuned for more updates related to Raya’s latest case.
I’m not quite fond of March; the reason is linked to my earlier profession as a banking branch head. March meant meeting year-end targets, hectic schedules, and no holidays. However, life as a writer gives me an option to choose what I want to make of any month. Though it comes with the difficulty of not knowing when to stop and take a break, it also means that I hold the power to decide if I can balance my deliverables and afford to take a mini-vacation.
The recent beach vacation at Mandarmani
I remember blogging about my intention of writing consistently. Since this is my first post in March, it looks like I didn’t keep my promise. But hold on! I’ve not only been consistently writing for forty days unmanaged to churn out until today, but I’ve also managed to churn out 93k plus words for my second novel. Ideally, I should be able to finish it by this month and work on the editing process next month. As of now, it looks like I’ll end the book at a little over lac words, though I hope to cut it down once I start editing and rewriting.
Second novel in the Raya Ray series is work-in-progress
Despite such a hectic schedule, a vacation was long due. The kid finished his Prep 2 assessment, the husband who’s been on duty since last March faced a high risk of burn-out and my eyes were aching from the number of hours I spent working on my laptop. So, we took off on a beach vacation to Mandarmani for three days after a year, and I’m falling short of words to express how special this holiday was. To see the kid running on the beach, playing football with his father, letting the waves splash against him was sheer delight. However, we maintained every safety protocol from wearing masks to sanitizing our hands at all steps.
The son and the father playing football on the beach
We returned feeling rejuvenated. The kid is enjoying his session break, the husband is back on duty and I’m clocking an average of three-thousand words per day as I work towards the finishing line of Raya Ray’s second case.
Together as a family after a very long time
Amidst all this, I thought of grabbing the opportunity of doing the Blogchatter A2Z challenge 2021 in April for the fourth consecutive year. In the first year, I wrote about Bengal as ‘A dollop of Bengal’ series. In the second year, I wrote about our pathetically ridiculous experiences related to Tuneer’s school admission process. Last year, I tried to bring humor into our grim lives by writing about stand-up comedians and YouTube creators in the genre of comedy. Like every year, I’m yet to decide on the theme this year. However, the thrill of getting back to daily blogging is unparalleled. Wish me luck as I conclude my second novel and take the plunge with the A2Z challenge next month.
Sharing one more gorgeous picture from the sun, sand, and sea vacation this month. Stay safe and take care.
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