He Said Books Or Me: Guest Post with Joanie Pariera

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