Writer Kavitha Mandana was born in Mysore (now Mysuru), and her schooling was part in Mysore and part in the Nilgiris. She began writing when she joined advertising. “It’s a great discipline where deadlines are always ‘yesterday’. So, after four or five years there, when I had a baby, writing seemed a natural thing to pursue. It’s also when I gathered the courage to begin illustrating,” she says. When her daughter was two, in the days before Indian publishing took off, Kavitha began writing and illustrating for the kids’ supplement of the Karnataka-based newspaper “Deccan Herald”. And there began a fascinating journey into stories.
Writing like Kavitha Mandana
- Read a lot…the more you read, the better you’ll write. Also you’ll discover which genre you prefer to write in.
- Most of us who write, want our work to be read. So look out for those in your peer group (classmates, bus-buddies, cousins, grandparents, etc.) you could share your first stories or reports with. If you find even two others like yourself, read each others’ work and share what it is that you like about the work and what you might like changed (all politely done, of course!).
- A good exercise is to look t a piece of writing that you did for a school assignment, like an essay on your holidays. That would have been written with your teacher as your ‘audience’; which means you would use language appropriate to her age (not yours) and the point of the writing would also be to score marks. Now imagine writing about your holidays – for your friend. The age group changes; things you couldn’t mention in a school essay could be mentioned here, and in this case, you’re not interested in marks, but in entertaining or making things interesting for your friend. Compare the two pieces about the same holiday and you’ll learn a lot about how to write for different audiences.
The writer’s routine
“What inspires me is real life, mostly,” says Kavitha About her novel “No. 9 on the Shade Card”, she says, “It happened just by watching what was playing out in my, at that time, teenaged daughter’s life. She is very outdoorsy, athletic and generally played any game she got a chance to. But when trying to build relay teams or throwball teams, she realized that often even very talented girls weren’t permitted to play outdoors because of safety concerns or the parential worry of girls ‘turning dark’.”
In fact, a lot of her short stories are based on her childhood growing up in the Nilgiri hills, in boarding school, at her grandparents’ place in Coorg, and more. In fact, her first novel for middle-graders, “Bando, the Dog Who Led a Double Life” was really a combination of the goofy Labradors she had at home when growing up. “Of course, none of them could cartoon, like Bando could, in any book!” she laughs.
Kavitha confesses though that she has no process or pattern to her writing time. “I’M a very fits-and—starts kind of person. Besides, I have a full-time job that pays the bills! So writing is fun,” she reasons.
Kavitha Mandana’s books
- Trapped
- No. 9 on the Shade Card
- The Emperor Who Vanished: Strange Facts from Indian History
- The Sixth Grade Wedding Planners
Picture Credit : Google