Sharmishtha’s Comments (group member since Sep 26, 2016)

Sharmishtha’s comments from the Sharmishtha Basu's Indie Adda group.

Happy New Year my dear friends. Wish you all a very blessed 2022, Well, my wishful thinking did not materialized, even though I am away from social media sites but my project did not even took one step forward, it was crushed as seed LOL, so, I am passing this time in YT, after a one month ordeal YT returned me my channel Agni Kahini, it even have a name now because of my hyperactivity there since 2nd Dec 2021, if you are interested here are my youtube channels

https://youtube.com/c/sharmishthabasu
and
https://youtube.com/c/agnikahinibysha...

will be fun to connect with you there. You may enjoy the videos. :)

love.

Author to authors request and warning: Is it plagiarism or co-incidence?

Read the story I have published in Kindle [in my book sneak peek]
https://www.amazon.com/dp/b08v8gxv5h

The story is very long, so you will have to read it here:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/author...

Those of you who have a Netflix connection or can manage to watch it at a friend’s place or elsewhere check out the movie Hypnotic [2021] in Netflix, how similar the core of these two are. All I can say that I sincerely hope that this penniless author does not have a shark in her close circle or stalking her online LOL. I truly am penniless, dependent on my brother for my livelihood.

I am always open to team up with another author but not into ghostwriting, I am really to possessive about my works to let others claim them as theirs.

For years I have come across snips and pieces of my stories being used in movies and have known that either these authors hire ghost-writers who steal from authors in blogs or they themselves flitter around blogs to steal ideas, stories. This one is a huge leap toward stealing story I feel, what do you think?

Well, October came and went like it was never here. Hope you all had a great October, esp. the Indians of the group because this is festive season of India.

See you again in November. Till then be blessed, be safe.

Love.

Hope all is well there, things are really busy here these days, my YouTube channel is consuming lot more time than I dreamt it will LOL.

will love to see you there if you spend time in YouTube and wont mind checking out works of an amateur.

Agni Kahini
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZae...
All the works are here:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZae...

Hi guys,

Hope all is well there. If you are in YouTube and just like me looking for a few subscribers please do check out my channel Agni Kahini by Sharmishtha Basu, if you subscribe I will subscribe back unless of course your content is absolutely not my type. If you do subscribe then please leave a comment because YouTube hides the details of almost seventy percent subscribers :(

I will leave a comment when I subscribe you back. It will be great to reach 100 subscribers ASAP, I hope you will enjoy the contents too, I loved creating them. Be prepared though because I may post one post a day for a few months to get noticed in the ocean of videos called YouTube.

Love and thanks.
gni Kahini
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZae...
All the works are here:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZae...

Hope you have been enjoying your days till now! keep doing that!

I will just say hi and bye! :)

Ye have been warned 1 “Eat it before it eats you!”
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/eat-be...

Forgetfulness
https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/...

Hope Goodread wont flag it again! Do check them out and if you can my YouTube channel too, you will find its link in "Eat it..."

Love and best wishes.

here are two reading materials for you from my desk only

https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/...
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/spirit...

add yours if you will please! Have a blessed June! See you in July!

love.

Hey!

Hope you guys are doing fine.

Take care and stay safe.
Love.

Gee aint I lucky! It got published at first go! I should go out and buy a lottery ticket!

Well it is April, things are hot as oven here in Kolkata, last month goodreads gave me really bad time, or maybe it is my internet, because it is driving me crazy in linkedin too.

I am sharing two links hoping goodread wont block them again. check out this months posts in linkedin.

https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/...
https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/...

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/spirit...

Critique Impact!
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/critiq...

Are not they tricky bunch! The critiques, their words are hard to swallow sometimes- not because they are harsh all the time but because they are sweet, too sweet to understand sometimes too!

Critiques are always good, even when they are harsh, there is no reason to feel giddy about harsh criticism because they are not well-wishers, they are just people who are expressing their opinion on your work or venting out own frustration on your work.

When it is too harsh keep it aside, ask a few friends if they think that opinion expressed are right or wrong, or you can simply share it in your blog/facebook page asking for open opinions. In the meantime assess your own work and decide if you think those words are true! If they are then it is honey coated with quinine. Utilize the honey part. Improve your work. If you think that it is not applicable for your work simply ignore that opinion! You are the boss of what you are writing and you know what you want to do with that, no one else knows that better than you!

Just one example, a personal one, I never planned for writing or did much homework before, after writing when I started writing in 2006 [I think] that was my first experience in writing for blogs/sites and I just wrote whatever I felt at that time.

Soon I gathered both type of readers, people who admired my works and a group of people that kept telling me that I first write my things in Bengali/Hindi and then translate it into English so it is full of faults. Well, they could not hoodwink me because I never write my things in my mother tongue, I always write in English, so I being the fortunate one knew dozens of people whose mother tongue is English and I simply asked them if my English was bad, they said no, it is Asian English but not grammatically wrong. We Indians learn British English so Americans often don’t get it, so I did the next best thing that popped up in my mind and had an online test of BBC and came out in flying colors. That rested my confusion, then with time I started noticing how bad average Indian’s English is and started getting the picture, if these people read correct English they will argue their heads off that it is bad English and the English they know is right.

So, don’t follow anyone blindly, not even yourself, test and then decide what is right and what is right for you.

Love is a lovely trap
Full of illusions
And self-induced delusions
Walk carefully in this land
Of roses and fragrant petals
For under that layer of
Fragrant, coloured are often
Hidden scorpions and snakes,
And more frequently than you think
Pits of endless torment,
Being stung or bitten may save you
But once you fall in that pit
Only heavens can reach out for you
And save you, oh don’t close your
Eyes when you walk amongst
Beauty and flowers
Sweetness and fragrance
Keep your eyes open wide
to relish and to stay safe!

https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/...

Sneak Peek
https://www.amazon.com/dp/b08v8gxv5h

Story one: The lunatic-

Scratching sound on her window woke her up. Mina opened her eyes, it was dark outside but she could see vaguely because of the streetlight. Someone was standing at the window, slowly running her finger on the glass, looking at her.

An old woman with disheveled hair and hungry eyes, she was staring at her like she wanted to devour Mina with her eyes!

She woke up in her bed with a bad taste in her mouth. Her husband was sleeping by her, like a baby. One arm wrapped around her waist. She gently freed herself and went downstairs for a cup of tea.

A strange feeling of gloom took over her whenever she dreamt about this old woman. Sometimes she will dream that she was stalking her in a deserted road, sometimes she would be in a strange place with strange people, people who seemed known to her then this woman will show up and they will disappear.

The story of a young woman and her nightmares, how they became real in most horrific way!

Story two: The old graveyard

She fell asleep thinking about the song and had a strange, scary dream. She was walking alone in a deserted road, it was dark and the streetlights were really faint, most probably hundred watt bulbs. Huge, bushy trees were on both sides of the road, softly shaking in the wind. They looked like ghosts or monsters standing there, watching her, about to pounce!

Suddenly she heard that song, this time louder and clearer, she followed it and soon was standing at the gate of a graveyard. The sound was coming from inside the cemetery. She opened the gate and entered it. Like a dreamer does without thinking about the consequences, then she started looking for the singer.

Story of a young girl in college, when she heard that song for the first time her very soul froze, as if a dark clammy hand from her past reached out and touched her unleashing stark horror.

More stories in the book!

Sneak Peek is a brand new book with brand new stories, the stories of this book has not been published before. Actually these were written for this book specially, I also decided to include it in Amazon’s pentopublish competition for fun. The stories are my favorite genre of course, spooky and mystery. Hope you will check them out and enjoy them!


Don’t forget to share your views after reading.


I will be waiting!

Time and patience
With skill and persistence
Brings out the gems
From pit of words in mind,
Waves of worldly attractions
And duties earthbound
Drag away the miners
From their mining
And excavation
And they return empty-handed
Again and again
Leaving behind the gems
In the darkness of pit
Waiting for the right hands
And the right moment.

https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/...

Well being absolutely against paying money to get reviews for my books I used to look for sites that offer free reviews and came across many such sites, these sites are from an old notebook, so I don’t know if they have changed their ways or site addresses.

But if you are looking for reviewers for your books they are absolutely worth checking out, I will be doing the same too, let us exchange notes after we both have done it and help others!

https://www.stepbystepselfpublishing....
https://www.midwestbookreview.com/ger...
https://indiereader.com/get-reviewed
https://selfpublishingreview.com

Happy hunting!

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/lookin...

Wish you all a very blessed 2021!

What a year it was!

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/2020-s...

2020


This year will be etched in the minds of everyone who is mature enough to know its gravity. This year taught us so many lessons that we most probably will never forget!
The things I learned from 2020-
1. We are too globally connected to shrug and say, hey that is happening in Kenya, it is not going to change my world!
2. There are many good people in this world, who may not act like angels in regular time but when catastrophe strikes they grow a pair of wings.
3. of course there are those who belong to other camp too, those who grow horns and tail when others are down.
4. There are junctions in life after which life just changes, i really don't think we will go back to the time before covid-19, the thorn will stay!
5. Sometimes curses turn into boons, or disadvantages into advantages, think about us authors, bookworms and couch potatoes that rarely venture out of their homes, always stuck to their writing and reading, how little lockdown affected us!
In the end I certainly am glad to see the end of this year, and am quite surprised that it went out so fast, it was supposed to drag but it did not. Hope 2021 will be all about recovery and revival!

Reading classics and stuffs
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/readin...


I loved reading since my earliest childhood, I was lucky to be born in a family where everyone read voraciously, my parents, my elder siblings, everyone had their own choice of books though but they all were voracious readers. My father and eldest brother loved reading non-fiction mostly, books like medical journals and Time-life series books. My elder sister was all into romantic books, the eldest loved romance, thrillers and ghost stories. Elder brother was mostly into cheesy romance and thrillers. I read everything I could lay my hands on. Literally everything! I still do! But I repeat fewer and repeat very few more than twice. When it comes to repeating I become all fussy. Enough foreplay, now how those books enriched me as a writer?

One too many ways! The level of English, Bengali and Hindi those books have taught me my school teachers could never teach me or college professors, they were just doing their duties in the classes but these authors laid out a delicious spread, they poured out their hearts on those books, played with words, dug out gems for their works and shared them with us. The things you can learn from books, no matter what field you are trying to advance in, no other medium can teach you. All you have to do is read as many as you can. That I did!

How did it benefit me as a writer? Honestly I can’t count the way! The seed that those thousands of books have sown and the dreams the daydreamer in me dreamt after reading them found their place in my writings decades later.

The skill of playing with words, knowing so many of them to start with! From where else could you accomplish it but from books or a dictionary, then a dictionary won’t teach you to play with words, sentences or things! Books open a universe before a writer, and give him/her the tools to play with it, conquer it!


It keeps them humble, after reading so many master-pieces a voracious reader who has become an author will never get arrogant, s/he will always know about masters and their classics and the worth of his/her own works.

It keeps them optimist too, no matter how little their books sell they will always remember legends like Lovecraft who died in penury, and after a horrific death became a legend! So, they will not get depressed if their books don’t sell but will enjoy the process of writing and sharing their works with world. Especially, in today’s age, when Kindle offers you amazing platform for publishing your works independently without spending a single dime! If you can’t afford to spend money on publishing you can still become a writer and quite often an established one! So no need to mope much but pray, that some fine day your works will get noticed and sell and you will still be around there to enjoy the show! Or else you will die as a writer who gave his/her best but did not get recognized like so many before you!

What have reading given you? Share!

Reading and writing
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/readin...


We writers have a tendency of losing ourselves completely in writing, we get so engrossed in writing that we ignore reading, we pass most of our time writing, editing, rewriting and that leaves us mentally exhausted, too exhausted to read works of others. That I personally think is a very bad step, I have always tried to avoid this, tried not to make it a habit I mean but I do fail quite a lot, there used to be weeks when all I did was wrote, painted and edited, did not even opened internet to browse blogs of my friends.

Why do I suggest reading the blogs of others?

The way I have been helped by this is beyond words. When I first started blogging in wordpress I was lucky that my path crossed with a girl named Jingle, she loved blogging and included me in her group, that girl tirelessly worked to bring us authors together and keep together. I don’t know which direction my writing would have gone had she not entered my blogging sphere but her entrance transformed it.

I discovered myself sitting smugly amongst a group of extremely talented artists, authors and avid readers. I utilized it to the best because I had all the time of world in my hand and was itching to forget my unemployed status. The transformation that happened to my writing and painting was immense!

1. My English improved in leaps and bounds, reading others attentively did that magic, I could see my own flaws and smooth them up, every month I read hundreds of blogs and they sort of transformed my own writing, my brain became a pot boiling with ideas, one person’s writing, painting, photograph always stimulates others, not only mimics but idea-hunters or just simple creators too.
2. We read each other’s works and improved our own works, tips and suggestions were left, but it worked by itself too, reading others thoroughly improves your own writing, you find out an interesting way of writing, a better way than yours you feel and you change your own style. You learn new words, new phrases and thousands of new things!
3. Reading the tips of editing and writing are some of the best habits, even if you don’t believe in methodical writing [I don’t, my writing is impulsive but these tips always open a path for improvement.] these tips help.
4. Reading other people’s blogs means if they are kind they will read your works too and leave priceless tips and suggestions. Or simply give you extra enthusiasm to write, after all we write for readers! Otherwise we would be writing journals not blog-posts or books.

There are many other ways I have been benefitted by reading voraciously, will leave few for next installment.

Hope you all have been doing well, prime festivals of Bengal are gone, it has been safe and pleasant!

Hope it has been the same there too!

See you again in December. Till then stay safe and take care.

love.