Writer's Desk

My Writing Journey

One day God came in my dreams. In the form of a large, dark buffalo. That was grazing merrily. On a Dutch Plain. He lifted his head from the grass and spoke to me.

"You have been taking so many stories from this world. Isn't it time you gave back some to the world as well?"

I pleaded, "I would, my Lord. Indeed I would. If but I had the talent with words."

"All those wisecracks and retorts that you throw away on many a casual occasion without a thought - is that not a way with words?"

"But my Lord, even if I were to write, who would read?" "All those wisecracks and retorts that you throw away on  a casual occasion without a thought - is that not a way with words?" READ MORE

Recognition

I started my blogging in 2008 on my blog Lucifer House Inc. Initially I started writing about personal experience and thoughts on various social and political matters. Then writing underwent a lull in 2009. When I was back to writing in 2010, one of the major impetus was provided by contents of various hues - some sponsored by brands on blogger portals which included prizes, some conducted by blogger groups and others just a weekly recognition of best posts in blog-o-sphere.

Many of the wins would be for posts written on the other blog with pseudonym "The Fool". In a few places, my full name "Karthik Lakshminarayanan" may be mentioned. I present below list of mentions. The posts they refer to themselves may have been modified and moved to this blog. So some of the links from there may not work. READ MORE

Publications

There is a certain thrill in seeing one's name in print. I got the opportunity to see my stories in two physical books. I also published a e-book along with my two of my friends, featuring one novella by each of us. Then there were a couple of short story collections where my story was picked for publication but the books were published only as e-book with no physical copies printed. In addition to these 5, a bunch of my flash fiction as well as 2 of my stories were picked for publication in online periodicals making a total of 8 publications in all. In future however I plan to be more selective in submitting my work for publication focusing on paid submissions. READ MORE

Guest Posts

Guest blogging is another of those things that excite a blogger. You know you feel a certain pride when someone thinks your writing is good enough to host on their space. I was very happy when I first received an invite to write for a professional portal for Non residential Indians. I wrote 2 pieces for them. Four of the posts where written for blogger friends when I wrote on topics on which their blogs focused - cricket, travel, parenting and fiction. One of the other 3 was for a work of fiction for a e-zine. (I differentiate this from online magazine because the content is on a blog rather than being circulated as pdf files). The other two were my views on books written for sites focusing on book reviews making then a total of 9. READ MORE

When I am not writing

Let me keep this short and sweet. An engineer and a MBA, who has worked as an IT Consultant and Operations Strategy Consultant. Currently working as an Analytics consultant.

IIT, Madras, IIM, Ahmedabad, International University of Japan, Infosys, Unisys, Accenture, Kirby Building Systems and Deutsche Post Gmbh are some of the institutes and organizations whose badges I have borne around my neck in the 20 years since I finished my schooling.

Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Ernakulam, Trichy, Gurgaon, Ahmedabad, Bhopal, Baruch, Indore, Tarapur, Nagpur, Ambasamudram, Munich, Bonn and Urasa are places where I have found place to rest my head in my close to 40 years of existence. READ MORE

Carthick's Unfairy Tales 
I started blogging in April 2008. I have written stories on blogs, participated in story writing contests, submitted to anthologies, participated in national novel writing month and had lot of social media interactions with authors. After various activities, in Jan 2018, I finally release my book. In this series of posts I share all my experiences around the launch of this book, right from the conception of the ideas, key decisions on publishing options, editing, choosing designs for covers, creating blurbs, options for print book and last but not the least marketing. I am hoping this will be an useful resource for aspiring authors as well as tell my readers the whole behind the scenes story of this book. As far as possible I have tried not to include actual details such as names, costs etc. as such information may affect confidentiality of respective service providers.  READ POSTS