Lazy Pig

I spent the weekend + a few days at my parents' home in Novi, Michigan. This was a great time to wind down the past few months and see my family after a while. Some big changes are afoot. My li'l sis is headed to the Big Apple for an internship with Goldman Sachs and my grandmother is coming to town to visit. Yay!

One thing that really touched me this weekend was seeing my old school in Detroit downtown. Just driving down Cass Avenue brought back a deluge of memories. I can't wait to go back there and talk to the 7th-8th grade students about my writing and where I came from.

A quick summary of my weekend: I ate, Manav ate, I slept, Manav slept, we watched movies and gossiped the hell out of the days and nights.

That's it. So, here we are back in Seattle, fat and lazy and just counting the hours till the weekend!

Some great things going on lately:

• One of my first crit partners Nadine Dajani's book FASHIONABLY LATE is hitting the shelves htis week. Nadine is an incredibly talented writer and her story of the Canadian-Arabic girl is going to be unlike anything you' ve ever read. Who knows...I might even have a giveaway next week!! Nadine will also be giving a workshop with the awesome Blossom Kan at Nationals this year on writing multi-cultural fiction. I am *so* excited for this seminar!
• I got *great* news from Kimani that they unveiled my cover at a recent sales conf and the reviews are really good so far. They want to put forth marketing effort because of the diverse multi-ethnic cultures (Indian, African and Cuban) in the book.
• One of my closest friend Kanishtha has just started a cooking blog. Take my word for it, if Kanishtha opened a restaurant, it would be chained within weeks. Her cooking is just *that* good. At her house, I've had Indian, Thai, Burmese, etc food. All excelllent, spicy and just divine. Check it out! Kanishtha's Blog
• The great Diana P has just signed a 2 book deal with Harper Collins for her Killer Unicorn series RAMPANT. Woo hoo! Only Diana could pull of a feat like this.

So that's the word folks! I am crazily finishing up edits to HOW LIAH MET ANA for my lovely agent and am thinking of ideas for Book 3. Not panicking. Yet :)

Happy Thursday!

Arrrr....matey!

Yes, that's right. That was a pirate...sound effect.

Per the Sarkar-Mishra household tradiiton, my husband, me and my bro-in-law went to see Pirates III at midnight last night. Thursday night midnight shows always being in the kookiest, weirdest people to the marquee and last night was no exception. We stood in line for an hour with very authentic pirates, full bears, dreadlocks, fake parrots, eye patches, hats...the works.

The movie itself was...pretty good! I don't know what all the bad reviews are about (especially if you compare this to Spiderman III, which was just straight up WEIRD!). I felt the movie had too little Jack and way too little Keith Richards as Jack's dad. But otherwise, it was a fitting end to the trilogy. No overly-contrived happy ending. Just satisfying and .... well-deserved.

Yes, it was long...about half hour too long, but I liked it anyway. My favorite out of all three Pirates movies.

In other news, I got excellent news from my editor this morning that HOW TO SALSA IN A SARI's cover was unleashed at a Kimani sales conference and it got great reviews. The house wants to put a lot of effort behind the book because of it's multi-cultural characters. So, YAY!

I am off to Michigan for the long weekend, so I'll be on-and-off for a few days.
Have a great weekend all!

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Dona Sarkar-Mishra
http://donasarkarmishra.com
HOW TO SALSA IN A SARI - January 2008

Top Ten Tuesday: Top 10 Random Questionaire Questions

A near disaster at the gym this morning! Last night, i had only strawberries for dinner and then this morning I decided to hit the gym at the ususal 5 am. After lifting for about 30 minutes, I broke into a cold sweat, saw black spots, and dropped the 45 lb weight on the ground, barely missing my foot.

Then I lay on the floor for 10 minutes like a moron.
Lesson of the day: Don't work out unless you've had a good dinner the night before or had protein immediately before workout.

I need to get the final version of HOW LIAH MET ANA to my agent by end of week. Can you tell I'm severely procrastinating? I thought of a great way to make the ending really pop...the execution is going to be super-painful though :(

Now, onto funner topics!

TOP TEN RANDOM QUESTIONS

1. What is your biggest pet peeve? Not being on time, jealousy and people who are cruel for no reason other than they *can* be.

2. What was your favorite vacation? My honeymoon in Paris with my husband in January of 2005.

3. Are you doing with your life what you envisioned when you were 13? Definitely not! I expected to still be living in Michigan near my parents and be single. I never thought I would move across the country, marry my true love at 22, work at the largest software company in the world, PLUS be a published author.

4. Prefer the company of kids, pets, both or neither? Pets! I love kids, but I love 'em even more when they go home to their moms and dads at the end of the day :) My cat, Ash, is the great love of my life.

5. Who is the one person you could talk to all day and night? My husband, Manav. We can spend the whole morning talking and as soon as I get to work, I think of something to tell him.

and now....***LIGHTING ROUND***, think fast!

6. Favorite Celeb? Angelina Jolie for all the good she does. Madonna for being eternally kick-ass. Enrique Iglesias for being my first major celeb crush.

7. Favorite Food? Good pasta with mushrooms and white wine sauce. And creme brulee for dessert.

8. Tactful or Straightforward? Extremely straightforward. I say exactly what comes into my head. I've been told this is kind of a problem :)

9. Leader or Follower? Leader! I hate being told what to do. This is why I can't play team sports. :)

10. Fashionista or Couldn't Care Less? Fashionista. One of my fave things to do is pore over my 7 magazine subscriptions and see what's new and what's out. I love to dress-up. It seems superficial and pointless (esp in the tech industry), but it makes me happy. :)

I tag YOU Buzz Blog Girls...I must know your answers to these questions. Please use the comments section for your, ahem, confessions :) so we can all see them.
Happy Tuesday! (Only 4 more days till the long weeken...woo hoo!!!)

Working hard, or....

This will be the first of a series of posts on working out. For the past month, I've been trying to hit the gym with some semblence of daily, so working out is always on my mind. There are plenty of workout programs out there: lots of cardio, lots of weights, a little of both, a LOT of both, yoga, pilates...a girl could get seriously confused and give up :)

One program that works to keep me at my ideal weight without too much of a time commitment is the Valerie Waters program. She is the trainer who is responsible for the fantastic bodies of Jennifer Garner in ALIAS and ELEKTRA and Jennifer Lopez in OUT OF SIGHT. Since Jennifer Garner has my all-time favorite body type (really strong and can kick anyone's ass) I followed Valerie to the T.

The program is simple, but pretty challengenging, done in a very short amount of time. It's a combination of circuit training on one day, followed by cardio intervals the next, followed by circuit training for a total of 6 days per week. That sounds like a lot, but you're only working out for an hour a day--at a VERY high intensity.

Mondays - Wed - Friday

3 circuits done for 3 sets each with 15 reps. Each circuit has a 2 moves for the upper body (pushups, pullups, bicep curls, tricep dips) and 2 moves for the lower body (squats, lunges, deadlifts) and a abs excersize (ball crunches, leg lifts, planks, bicycles).

A typical workout would be like:

15 pushups, 15 squats, 15 pullups, 15 lunges, 15 ball crunches. I would do this 3 times without stopping then move onto another circuit.

This takes a full hour.

Tues - Thurs- Sat

I do cardio intervals for half hour. So if I was using the elliptical, I would do 2 minutes fast (like 90 rpms) and then 2 minutes easy (like 60 rpm) and I would do this for half hour total and then stretch out like mad.

I have no self-control over food so I pretty much eat what I want, just smaller portions.

This program has been working great and I feel fantastic...my size 6 jeans fit great again :) So wish me luck in getting some killer abs by Nationals :)

Top Ten Tuesday: Top Ten Phrases Signify SUNNY DAY For Me

Yay! Sunny day in Seattle! It's a rare glorious, sunshiny day here in the Pacific NW. For those of you who get gorgeous weather year around (I'm glaring at your Nadine!!! :)), this may not seem like anything special, but for me, this is heaven.

True, I'm trapped indoors at Microsoft after a brutal morning workout, but that doesn't stop me from dreaming about what I would do if I had the day free.

Top Ten Phrases Signify SUNNY DAY For Me:

1. Picnics - I don't do this nearly as much as I should, but there is nothing like geting lunch from KFC, Taco del Mar, or other finger friendly place, a bottle of champagne and spreaking a blanket in a nice park somewhere with my sweetie.
2. Pedicures - It's practically useless to have nice toenails in a city like Seattle where your toes are freezing 9 months of the year. However, on a sunny day, there is nothing like watching the sun bounce off of freshly painted sparkly toenails.
3. Kayaking and Mexican Food - This is a great restaurant in the U-District called Aqua Verde that rents kayaks downstairs. One thing I have to do on my next sunny day is to rent a kayak and take a few spins around Lake Washington...followed by a lucious mango-chicken burrito and a jimaica juice at the Mexican resaturant.
4. Zoo - We did this a few weekends ago. We hit the Seattle Zoo and all the cute little baby animals that were born this spring. The cutest? The baby tiger cub. She sleeps with a giant stuffed leopard. Adorable!
5. Walks along the waterfront - There is nothing quite like talking a stroll along Kirkland waterfront, watching the joggers and bikers and their adorable dogs.
6. Italian sodas - This is my drink of choice on a sunny day. I love it with coconut syrup with whipped cream.
7. Sunbathing & a book - Yes, the sun is bad for you, but a good slather of SPF 45 allows me to enjoy half an hour in the sun curled up with a chick-lit read while getting warmed up all over.
8. Dip - If I'm feeling really adventurous, I'll throw on that old bikini and jump into the lake for a few laps if the water looks *decently* clean.
9. Shopping outdoors - There is a great Premeire Outlet Center about 20 miles from my place and shopping there on a nice day is my kinda heaven. Saving up to 70% off on gorgeous Banana Republic and Ann Taylor outfits? Bring it!
10. Ice-cream - Can there be anything better than a Baskin Robbins waffle cone with Creme Brulee ice cream on a sunny day?

I am so hungry right now :)

So what about you? What's your favorite way to spend a sunny day?

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Dona Sarkar-Mishra

HOW TO SALSA IN A SARI - Janury 2008

HOW LIAH MET ANA - November 2008

Where in the world is Dona Sarkar?

Yes, yes, I have dramatically disappeared for a month, and I can't even swear I won't do it again. But I come bearing all kinds of news.

• My crazy-ass gym/writing/working schedule STUCK! Yes! I am now hitting the gym every morning from 5 - 7 am. It's an addiction. I even go on weekends. I have never felt better. I do a major weights workout for an hour, followed by an hour of cardio on the elliptical or treadmill, then home to shower and get ready for work.
• I have been writing pretty much every day and it's paid off....I finished Book 2! It is tenatively titled HOW LIAH MET ANA (Thank you BBGS for the title!!!!). I need to make a few final edits (typos, make sure eye color stays the same, etc before I submit. I will make my self-assiged June 1st deadline! Yes! I wrote this book in 2 months...a new record for me!

Some things I have NOT been doing:

• Reading (I t0ok forever to read the lovely Marley Gibson's RUSH preview. I loved the story and I owe Ms. Gibson a quote worth of her book! :))
• Having a life (I broke this rule to go see Spidey 3 on opening night. I liked it...decently well)
• Blogging (enough said)
• Being a good writing friend (Sorry BBGs! I know it seems like i dropped off the face of the earth forever now, but I swear I'll be better. And my darling islandeer Nadine Dajani...only a few more weeks till FASHIONABLY LATE releases! I can't wait!!!!! I want to have a whole fashionably late themed week!)
• Marketing (I know, I know, I should be talking to booksellers and working on a good plan, but wow, it's such a daunting task. Just sitting and being scared seems to much easier!)

But I digress. I am throwing around ideas for my next YA novel and I have come across an idea which is very real, very painful, and very, very true. This is an issue which is present in our culture as prominently as eating disorders, abuse, alcoholism, drug use, gang-related deaths and violence...

I won't talk about it till I get my proposal together for my agent, but I wanted your opinion. What do yout think about YA novels that address issues that are "ripped from the headlines" for lack of a better term? Do they seem overly depressing in a world where these issues aren't really fiction, but an everyday thing?

I would love to hear from you.

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Dona Sarkar-Mishra

HOW TO SALSA IN A SARI - January 2008

HOW LIAH MET ANA - November 2008