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For the October 2016 Muse of the Month, we take inspiration from Anuja Chauhan. The 5 best entries will be published.
Step 1. Read the writing cue (which is either a direct quote from the featured author, or a quote from one of their works, mentioned down below) and get inspired.
Step 2. Write your own story/poem/narrative/essay/piece based on the cue. You could use it as the opening line, the closing sentence, or somewhere in between! You could even choose not to use it anywhere in your story – just write a story using the cue as a prompt. (And the ‘story’ can be fictional – or not – as you wish).
Step 3. Send your work to us. Please email it to [email protected]nsweb.in with ‘Muse of the month – October 2016’ in the subject line, and your story as a word/txt attachment. Do include the name we should use if we publish it, and a brief introduction of yourself (2-3 lines) in the mail.
Please note: Given the number of entries received, we won’t be able to respond to each, but every single entry is being read through very carefully and is much appreciated.
Please send in your stories by Tuesday, 18th October, by 3 p.m. IST. The 5 best stories will be published on Women’s Web between 24th Oct to 28th October, one on each day.
The material should be previously unpublished elsewhere. (Copyright stays with you and you’re free to subsequently publish it elsewhere).
Keep it between 250 and 2000 words. (Please keep this in mind; in past editions, we have had to disqualify some good entries purely due to word count issues).
Please avoid typing the story as inline text. Send it as an attachment only.
The 5 best entries will each win a Flipkart voucher worth Rs 250. Plus, there will be 10 overall winners at the end of 2016 from among these winners!
Anuja Chauhan is an author and advertiser, and is often called the best writer of the commercial fiction genre. She worked in advertising for almost two decades before quitting her job as a vice-president of JWT (J. Walter Thompson) to take up full time writing. 17 years of advertising made her realise her true love of writing. As she says, “Advertising is like writing in a very tight box. I had begun to tire of it.”
Born in an army family, she grew up in various cantonments, finally doing her post graduation from Australia. As a teenager she would concoct stories to entertain her friends. She is often referred to as the literary pop-star owing to her elegantly spicy and witty urban slang, use of hinglish, and a humorous take on the absurdities of Indian life. Her male characters are delectable and female characters are strong women, because she likes girls to have strength of character…those who have a larger life plan with a perpetually thinking brain.
Her first two books, The Zoya Factor (2008) and The Battle For Bittora (2010) happened during her full time job. With her third book Those Pricey Thakur Girls (2013) being converted to a television serial, she has taken up screen writing as well. Her latest offering The House That BJ Built is a sequel, which again revolves around the Thakur girls and family drama.
With a love for big houses that shows in her stories too, she stays with her husband, who is a television producer, and their three kids in Bangalore, and hopes her house is the place where her grandchildren would come and visit.
“If I had low self-esteem, how could I have done what I did tonight?” – Anuja Chauhan, Those Pricey Thakur Girls
Do not forget to send in your entries by Tuesday, 18th of October, 3 p.m. IST.
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He said that he needed sometime to himself. I waited for him as any other woman would have done, and I gave him his space, I didn't want to be the clingy one.
Trigger Warning: This deals with mental trauma and depression, and may be triggering for survivors.
I am someone who believes in honesty and trust, I trust people easily and I think most of the times this habit of mine turns into bane.
This is a story of how a matrimonial website service turned into a nightmare for me, already traumatized by the two relationships I’ve had. It’s a story for every woman who lives her life on the principles of honesty and trust.
And when she enters the bedroom, she sees her husband's towel lying on the bed, his underwear thrown about in their bathroom. She rolls her eyes, sighs and picks it up to put in the laundry bag.
Vasudha, age 28 – is an excellent dancer, writer, podcaster and a mandala artist. She is talented young woman, a go getter and wouldn’t bat an eyelid if she had to try anything new. She would go head on with it. Everyone knew Vasudha as this cheerful and pretty young lady.
Except when marriage changed everything she knew. Since she was always outdoors, whether for office or for travelling for her dance shows, Vasudha didn’t know how to cook well.
Going by her in-laws definition of cooking – she had to know how to cook any dishes they mentioned. Till then Vasudha didn’t know that learning to cook was similar to getting an educational qualification. As soon as she entered the household after her engagement, nobody was interested what she excelled at, everybody wanted to know – what dishes she knew how to cook.