Go Crushing!

Kiran Manral is a blogger, writer, published author and good friend. She has just released her second novel, Once Upon A Crush, which promises to be as much fun as her first, The Reluctant Detective! If you're looking to liven up a May day with witty humour and laugh-out-loud moments, go Crushing! 

I caught up with Kiran and brought you some dope on the book - read through, then go pick up your copy!

1. Once Upon a Crush is your second book. Give us the jazz on it!
Once Upon A Crush is a book about an almost 30 year old single professional woman living alone in Mumbai, stuck in a job that is as exciting as watching paint dry and with a boss who is determined to make life miserable for her. And to add to this, her parents are hounding her about settling down with a suitable boy. The only bright spark in her drab day is the resident office handsomeness on whom she has a totally unsuitable crush. What happens then is what the book is all about.

2. What inspired you to write this book?

Many conversations with 20 somethings, listening in on conversations between 20 somethings, the realisation that despite Friedman and Steinem, at the end of the day, settling down, whether like tea leaves or not, seems to be all consuming once women hit 30.

3. What are your current projects?

Working on a couple of manuscripts right now. Both light reads, chicklits as they call them. Fingers crossed.

4. Three favourite writers?

P G Wodehouse, J RR Tolkein, Haruki Murakami.

5. Which writer and/or book has been a lasting influence on you?

Two actually. Gone With The Wind by Margaret Mitchell and Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. These were my coming of age books, books which told me that romance wasn’t all, and a woman needed to find her feet and stand on them.

6. Any writing rituals?

Just put butt to seat and switch the computer on.

7. Advice to aspiring authors?

Read every single day. Write every single day. I have had really strange conversations with some authors who say they don’t do any reading because they don’t want to get ‘influenced.’ I beg to differ. I say everything will enrich your writing. The use of language. Cadence. The way someone structures and plots their narrative. You can only come away enriched by reading everything you lay your hands on. And you must write everyday because writing is a skill, and like any performing art, you need to practice every single day. It doesn’t matter if what you write is rubbish, you can always delete it and rewrite bits of it.

8. What was the hardest part of writing this book? / writing in general?

Getting down to writing. Seriously, there are so many distractions, so many demands on one’s time. Shutting the world out, switching twitter, fb, gchat, skype off, not looking at the messages piling up on whatsapp and just writing. In today’s day and age of instant online communication and networking, this is the toughest challenge.

More about Kiran:

Kiran Manral has worked as a journalist before she quit to be full time mommy. Her blogs, www.thirtysixandcounting.wordpress.comand www.karmickids.blogspot.com, are both in Labnol's list of India's top blogs. She blogged at Tehelka Blogs on gender issues. She is also considered a 'social media star' on twitter by the TOI and IBN Live named her as among the 30 interesting Indian women to follow on twitter and among the top 10 Indian moms to follow on twitter for 2013.
Post 26/11, she founded India Helps, a volunteer network to help disaster victims post 26/11 and has worked on longterm rehabilitation of 26/11 Mumbai terror attack victims and 13/7 Mumbai bomb blast victims, amongst others.
She is part of core founding team behind CSAAM (www.csaawarenessmonth.com) and Violence Against Women Awareness Month (www.vawawareness.wordpress.com), two very well received social media awareness initiatives across twitter and the blogosphere.
Her debut novel, The Reluctant Detective, was published by Westland in 2012.