Hi Everyone!
I am excited to be here today to bring you a guest post from Joanie Pariera. Please help me welcome her to the blog!
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The
Making of ‘Twisted Doubles’
Joanie
Pariera
I must begin where it all began, with the
motivation behind ditching a career in I.T. to take up writing fiction
full-time.
It wasn’t a conscious decision to quit I.T.; that
was sort of forced upon me, but there is this memory of a clear moment when I
decided I wasn’t going to procrastinate anymore. I was going to pick up the
idea swirling around in my head, and go for it. I wasn’t just going to keep
‘thinking’ about it, I was going to convert those thoughts into action.
That first page that I wrote after years was
healing. I say ‘after years’, because to be honest that wasn’t the first time I’d
written anything you could categorize under fiction. I had written creative
essays that were well received and had penned down short stories that I
published during my school and college years.
This was going to be my do-or-die attempt, but I
never intended to quit my day job. You don’t need to do that to prove anything to
yourself or to anyone else. I would not recommend it.
Anyway, back then I was in Redmond, Washington. The
fall colors there are awesome, and it was truly inspiring. The words were just
spilling out, unbidden. It was great, and yet, the little romantic tale I ended
up writing somehow fell flat.
Years later, I would realize that I have this quirk
where everything in my head would be dealt with harshly after the last line had
been reproduced on paper/word-processor.
Oddly contradictory, was the unmistakable urge to continue
writing. I knew I would never publish anything unless I used a pen name. I did
some research and found that lots of people use pen names. Men pretended to be
women and vice-versa. It isn’t that I wanted to hide my thoughts, masking them
by attributing them to a pseudonym; I think it is more like a self-awareness
exercise.
My pen-name isn’t who I see myself as. It is
something I wouldn’t mind hanging around in my backyard, or having lunch with
on occasion. It isn’t something I’d want to put on a label elsewhere (Know of
any authors who’ve use their pen names to start a company?). When someone suggested
this to me the other day, I had to stop and think. Is that what I really want?
This name on every letterhead, cup, mug, and insignia? On the other hand, you
wouldn’t want to lobotomize it out of your system either. (Hold your horses, Hannibal
Lecter!)
It is like a journal that has a name.
It’s a very fine line - this cannot go into a robot
for sure! This is what differentiates us from robots. We cannot define certain
aspects of ourselves. Period. Writers probably struggle with this, and others
with other things.
This became the crux of the novel ‘Twisted Doubles’.
In ‘Twisted
Doubles’, a person deals with having to prove her own identity in a world
where lawlessness is rampant. Part of the lawlessness is in her head, and it
flourishes, thriving on her fears as well as its own determination. A mind
possessed into eking revenge is shaking up her life in a very fundamental way.
She must work around that and survive.
As she begins walking this trail, she is forced to
answer to herself an all important question - what does she really want?
When you are presented with the opportunity to
start over, would you do anything different?
And how far away can you run when you feel tethered by a love stronger
than anything else?
Torn between her need to survive and her need to go
back to claim the most precious thing on earth - a love so deep you’d write books about - she
must shed her naivety overnight and find her real core, a core that no
government issued I.D. can ever capture. Message delivered.
Just so, a pseudonym can never capture everything a
writer is about.
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About the Author of
‘Twisted Doubles’
A humorist, a feminist, and above all a humanist – Joanie
Pariera is a published author. Her short stories have appeared in literary
magazines and she’s won various other laurels for her writing. Originally from India,
she currently resides in New York with her family.
Social Media
Amazon Author
Page: amazon.com/author/joaniepariera
Facebook
page : https://www.facebook.com/GoodFiction12/
Twitter:
https://twitter.com/NotADouble
Website:
http://joaniepariera.com
You can purchase
‘Twisted Doubles’ here:
Amazon - https://tinyurl.com/y6vf6xrq
Ibooks - https://tinyurl.com/ydyfzqjj
KOBO - https://tinyurl.com/yaxbbw4b
Amazon UK - https://tinyurl.com/yb2dlza4
Amazon Germany - https://tinyurl.com/y8egq4wb
Amazon Australia - https://tinyurl.com/yc4oew6j
Amazon Brazil - https://tinyurl.com/yafv9k6k
Amazon India - https://tinyurl.com/y9mymcb2
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