Preeti Shenoy's blog.

Most runners speak of a 'Runners high'-- that endorphin rush you feel when you have been involved in strenuous activity, leading to a feeling of euphoria and happiness.     Yesterday I hit a writers high. It was something I have never experienced before. I wrote 7256 words yesterday. That is the highest ever number of words I have written in a single day, in my entire writing career. I patted myself on the back. And when a friend pinged to ask how is the writing going, I said 'Super, I hit a writer's high today. This is the highest number of words I have written in a single day in my entire life,'. 'Wow. Keep rocking!' he typed back. But I don't think he understood why it meant a great deal to me. Writing a book, is a lot of  work really. You have to think of a story (a completely original one which noone has done before, which by itself is a mammoth task), a plot, characters (they have to be likeable, believable, and people who you can rela

Yesterday, after I published the post on weight-loss , I got a really nice mail from Kavya who wanted to share her story with me. I found her story commendable and inspiring and asked her if I could share it with everyone. She had absolutely no issues in sharing and in fact said she would be happy to, if it inspired people. So here is the mail she wrote me and her story in her own words: I am Kavya, residing in Bangalore. I am into Music and am studying  music for my graduation (B.Music). I have been following  your blog for over a year now and I have to accept this..you have truly inspired me in so many ways! :)  I love you for that and everything that you are :) <3 And today when I saw your  "5 not-so-hard ways to lose 2 kilos in a week"   post, I thought I must share with you some of my pictures of "then and now" :)  My story goes something like this, I completed my 10th std from Kendriya Vidyalaya DRDO (KVDRDO) Bangalore in 2009. I w

An incident which happened to me today made me think about annonymous commenting and commenting using pseudonym, without revealing identities. Photo credit: Daniel Ivan (creative common license) In my very early blogging days (way back in 2006) when I had first started blogging, I was terrified about what I was getting into. I felt very scared to give out my real name and hence used my initials 'PS'. Gradually I began getting popular and many of the people who were commenting on my posts regularly (they all used their real names and they used pictures of themselves) wanted to 'see' me in order to connect with me better. By then, I had figured out that the Internet isn't  that dangerous a place as it is made out to be, as long as one follows some basic rules. So I started blogging under my real name as well as I put up a picture of myself. It helped immensely later, when I wrote articles for Times of India, Readers Digest etc as Editors could easily sample

The last few days, I have been doing some interesting stuff apart from writing my fourth book. What started as a small idea soon grew into a project and I started reading up and watching videos on Balcony gardens. Even though I am very fortunate to have  a fairly large garden with a lush green lovely lawn, hibiscus bushes , creepers, jasmine and even a pomegranate tree, I still wanted to make a Balcony garden, because the idea of transforming a neglected space and converting it into something beautiful fascinates me. I was so pleased with what I managed to do  that I thought I'd share it with you. If you have even a small little space, an unused balcony cluttered with junk, you can still transform it into a small haven, where you can retreat and relax with a nice cup of tea at the end of a hard day. Let me show you how I did it. This is what my balcony corner looked like, before the makeover. It was bare and slightly muddy. I gave it a good sweep and washed it with

Heartwarming Photo of a Dog Sleeping in Its Owners Arms Goes Viral   In case any of you aren't on the Social Media and do not know about the above story, then please do read it in the link above. I cried when I read it. The dog's name is Schoep  and his owner is John. They have been together  for 19 years. Schoep now suffers from Arthritis and the condition is terribly painful. The pain was so intense that the dog couldn't sleep. John discovered that water soothes the pain. The water in Lake superior is quite warm at this time of the year and John started taking Schoep into the water and holding him there, so that Schoep could have pain free sleep. The compassion, the kindness and the pure love moved me to tears. I cried when I read the post and saw the photo. John says that he had rescued Schoep when he was an 8 month old puppy and Schoep had saved him from commiting suicide many years ago. Do read the link for the whole story. (It has got more than 3 lakh s

To celebrate the fantastic success  as well as the six month anniversary of my third book 'Tea for two and a piece of cake', my publishers Random House India have come up with a unique contest where 5 people get to have tea with me at a lovely location. Here is the  link to their post which gives all details. While the contest is open to everyone, do note that the travel expenses to the venue will have to be borne by the contestants..Therefore it is actually a treat if you are Bangalore based. :) Living in the same city as me, has to have some small advantages right? :) In another exciting thing which happened to me, Zee Business (Zee TV's business channel) interviewed me as a part of a story they are doing on the popular authors in India today. Here are some still-pictures from the TV shoot.  They  asked me interesting questions and they even shot some footage of me with my doggie who decided to co-operate and she was camera happy and enjoyed every bit,