Anoop Judge
WOW! WOMEN ON WRITING TOUR
of
No Ordinary Thursday
Tour Begins June 17
Book Summary
Lena Sharma is a successful San Francisco restaurateur. An immigrant, she’s cultivated an image of conservatism and tradition in her close-knit Indian community. But when Lena's carefully constructed world begins to crumble, her ties to her daughter, Maya, and son, Sameer—raised in thoroughly modern California—slip further away.
Maya, divorced once, becomes engaged to a man twelve years her junior: Veer Kapoor, the son of Lena’s longtime friend. Immediately, Maya feels her mother's disgrace and the judgment of an insular society she was born into but never chose, while Lena’s cherished friendship frays. Meanwhile, Maya's younger brother, Sameer, struggles with an addiction that reaches a devastating and very public turning point, upending his already tenuous future.
As the mother, daughter, and son are compromised by tragedy, secrets, and misconceptions, they each must determine what it will take to rebuild their bonds and salvage what’s left of their family.
Publisher: Lake Union Publishing
Print length: 335 pages
Purchase a copy of No Ordinary Thursday on
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/No-Ordinary-Thursday-Anoop-Judge/dp/1542037751/
Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/no-ordinary-thursday-anoop-judge/1140485124.
Bookshop: https://bookshop.org/p/books/no-ordinary-thursday-anoop-judge/17746161
You can also add this to your GoodReads reading list
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/61214404-no-ordinary-thursday
Guest Post
I wish I could
say that the journey from my debut novel to Mercy and Grace has been
seamless and smooth. It has not.
After my debut
novel, The Rummy Club’s release I had writer’s block for many years. I
would pick up the pen to write, but nothing would come to me. My body would
freeze, my eyes glued to the computer screen, my fingers motionless as if I had
frostbite.
Since writer’s
block is something that a lot of emerging writers struggle with, I want to
address it here and give some suggestions on how to overcome it:
Step away from
whatever you’re writing and do anything that’s creative: Paint
pictures, write poetry, design images in Photoshop, make a scrapbook or
collage, or if you're masculine, build something in the garage. Work on another
creative project for a few hours or days and then go back to writing. When I’m
stuck, I paint paintings or work on my website. Jumping into other projects
really activates my creativity. The key is to keep exercising the creative part
of your brain and eventually, you’ll tap back into the flow of writing.
Do free
writing: Spend fifteen minutes or more a day writing whatever
comes off the top of your head. Ignore punctuation. Just right freely. Allow it
to be totally random. You might change subjects many times. You might mix
fiction, journaling, or vent frustrations. The process trains your brain to tap
into the words inside your head and gives them a place to live on your computer
screen or journal. Do this for a week and then return to your writing project.
Move your body:
Dance, practice, yoga, or tai chi. This may sound funny, but when you get
your body into flow, your mind follows. Meditate and take long, deep breaths. A
relaxed mind is more open. And, an open mind is more imaginative. You can focus
longer when you are in a peaceful state. Sometimes I step away from writing, to
do some Pilates and breathing, then return to writing in a more creative state.
Eliminate
distractions: Turn off the phone and unplug from the Internet. Clean
up your workspace. A cluttered desk puts the mind in a state of confusion. Carve
out some time in your schedule--just for writing, at least 3 to 4 hours. Ask
your family to honor your space so you can write without interruptions or write
when everyone in the house is sleeping. Giving yourself time and space to be in
solitude is important to staying focused.
Write early in
the morning: When you first wake up, your brain is still in Theta
mode, the brain wave pattern that your mind is in when you dream. My best
writing happens when I get up at 4:00 or 5:00 AM. I’m amazed at what my mind
comes up with when I’m still half asleep.
Set
Small, Manageable Goals: One of the biggest
hurdles in overcoming writer’s block is the pressure to produce perfection. To
combat this, I started setting small, manageable writing goals. Instead of
aiming to write an entire chapter, I focused on writing a single page or even a
paragraph. These small victories gradually built momentum and helped me regain
my confidence.
As
you know, I overcame the writer’s block I was facing then to write and publish
three more books. While I faced many other hurdles—from
submitting two fully written books to my agent that never sold to losing my
agent entirely—writer’s
block is one thing I have never suffered from again.
When you apply one, or all, of these methods you’ll find that writer’s block is simply a minor speed bump that you can overcome easily and stay in the creative flow. Happy writing!
About the Author
Born and raised in New Delhi, Anoop is the author of four novels, The Rummy Club which won the
2015 Beverly Hills Book Award, The Awakening of Meena Rawat, an excerpt of which was nominated for the 2019 Pushcart Prize, No Ordinary Thursday, and Mercy and Grace.
Her essays and short stories have appeared in Green Hills Literary Lantern, Rigorous Journal, Lumiere Review, DoubleBack Review, and the Ornament anthology, among others.
Anoop calls herself a “recovering litigator”—she worked in state and federal courts for many years before she replaced legal briefs with fictional tales. She holds an MFA from St. Mary’s College of California and was the recipient of the 2021 Advisory Board Award and the 2023 Alumni Scholarship.
She lives in Pleasanton, California, with her husband, and is the mother of two admirable young adults.
You can follow the author at:
Website: https://anoopjudge.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/judgeanoop/?hl=en
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anoop-ahuja-judge-94396743/
#noordinarythursday #womensfiction #kindleunlimited #anoopjudge #booktour #guestpost #womenonwriting
Comments
Post a Comment