Kashmira Sheth's Weblog

Keeping Corner out in October

My next novel, Keeping Corner, is historical fiction for young adult based on my great aunt's life, and it is set in Gandhi-era India. It will be available in October.

From the publisher:

"Pretty as a peacock, twelve-year-old Leela has been spoiled all her life by everyone in her Gujarat village. She has never been interested in school and barely takes notice of the growing unrest between the British colonists and her own countrymen.  Why should she? Her future has been planned since her engagement at two and marriage at nine. And now, as the day she moves in with her husband's family draws near, she's too busy collecting bangles and ribbons to care about much else.

But when Leela's husband dies, her life changes forever.  Instead of being showered with  gifts and affection, she is is forced to shave her head and give away her beloved saris and bangles.  Leela is considered unlucky now, and will have to stay confined to her house for a year to keep corner in preparation for a life of mourning for a boy she barely knew.

When her schoolteacher hears of her fate, she offers to give Leela lessons at home. For the first time, despite her confinement, Leela begins to open her eyes to the changing world around her.  India is suffering from a severe drought, and farmers are unable to pay taxes to the British. She learns about a new leader of the people, a man named Gandhi, who starts a political movement and practices satyagraha, a non-violent protest against the colonists as well as the caste system.  The quiet strength of satyagraha may liberate her country. Could it be that she can use the same path to liberate herself?"

On trusting the process

When I first started writing I heard some writers talk about, “TRUSTING THE PROCESS” and wondered what it meant. Wasn’t the process dictated by the writers?

It took me a while to realize that sometimes it is hard to know how our mind puts a story together: not only does it vary from person to person, but also from novel to novel. For my first two books, I wrote more or less what I knew about, and it was a linear process of going from point A to B and then to C. My third book, Keeping Corner, was different and I found it hard to write it in a straight, simple way.

Keeping Corner is historical fiction set in the India of 1918-1919, based on the life of my great aunt who was a child widow. My parents told me about her life and about other widows’ lives, but I wanted to anchor my story in the time and place to make it come alive. I did extensive research on the political and cultural changes taking place at the time in India and particularly in the state of Gujarat where my story is set. I realized that I had two parallel stories running side by side in my mind and I had to weave them together so that it became one indivisible tale. I went back and forth in the story and it took me a long time to finish it.

Right now, I am trying to write a book about a subject and a place that I know little about, but have  a huge interest in. It has been a very challenging and sometimes frustrating experience. It would be easy to abandon this project and go on to write something I know, but I am determined to do it because once I finish I will have grown as a writer. I don’t know how to do it, but as I put words down, I will discover a process or maybe I will stumble upon it. Once I finish the first draft I will probably have to tweak it, layer it, and maybe even change the point of view or rewrite it.

I have no clue how this project will turn out, but I have to  “TRUST THE PROCESS” and proceed.