Following my latest release - LIGHT MY WORLD (Island Girls #2) - I've been asked this question often:
How did Diya Hemant, the heroine of that tale, come into being?
The truth is, I have no clue! She just came to me, barged her way into her elder sister Lara’s tale (The Other Side).
The thing is, the Hemant family is about 3 sisters, and we all know, siblings never come out alike in their personality. Lara was the career girl – had her head screwed right on her shoulders, and as the eldest, knew much of the family’s hopes and aspirations lay on her. Neha, the middle sister, was like many middle children – sensible, neutral ground, the one who never rocked the boat, even if she had to stifle everything of herself in the process.
Then there was Diya, the baby sister. More often than not, they say the youngest kid gets away with murder! Diya was born in the 1980s; she, more than any of her sisters, witnessed the progression in women’s empowerment in the 90s and the early 2000s. She also grew up in a world that opened up to technology every single day (cell phones replacing landlines, the advent of the Internet, email replacing snail mail, chat rooms, SMS), in the era of globalization and the world becoming one big village where everyone can communicate at any given moment with anyone in the world.
Of course, this kind of girl believes the world is at her feet, hers for the taking. She will chart her path in this new landscape and will settle for nothing that doesn’t come on her terms – she wants the career, the ‘catch’ to become her man, the riches, the fulfillment of womanhood, and she will get them, all of them!
And as I was writing her, I realized Diya was really a projection of myself. I was the same age as she (twenty-four) when I wrote her tale, and like her, I was born in the 1980s and witnessed the world changing from people/nations being veritable islands...to a whole global village where my best friend, whom I’ve never met in real life but have spent countless hours emailing and speaking to on the phone, lives in the Mediterranean, thousands of miles from my home in the southern Indian Ocean.
No wonder Diya wrote herself...because, in a way, she was me! She is the woman, the face of my generation.
It seems to me all of us writers bring something of ourselves to every tale - we might not recognize it as in-your-face, but even in subtle forms, you as the writer will be in some facet or the other of your story.
What do you think? Agree or Disagree?
From Mauritius with love,
Zee
You can find the books here http://amzn.to/1iidtsW and here http://amzn.to/1f0tdQJ
LIGHT MY WORLD (Island Girls #2)
It is a truth universally acknowledged that to find a prince, a girl has to kiss a few frogs along the way. But what happens when a modern-day princess comes across…an ogre?
So what if a girl has to kiss a few frogs to find her prince?
Tired of her Indian-origin mother’s relentless matchmaking, Diya Hemant is determined to find her Prince Charming on her terms. Armed with a definitive list of requirements, she is sure she’ll know her man when she meets him…
But looking and finding are two different things, especially on the tiny island of Mauritius…
When her path crosses surly British widower Trent Garrison’s, it’s hate at first sight. And though fate keeps pitting her against him, she’s certain he can’t be turned into a frog let alone a prince.
Can this modern-day princess overcome her own expectations and see beyond the ogre to the man beneath?
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