(WRIPE-6) If an Asteroid Falls

By Chinthaka Nanayakkara

A solitary girl experiences her final jog along ‘s Gravenweg leading to the doomed small town of Nieuwerkerk aan den IJssel ... With latest updates revealing that Guam would be polished off the face of earth after nine days, a group of scientists desperately try to find a way out ... Confined to a room due to lockdown, a housewife in Visakhapatnam muses on the horrific disaster that is about to happen ... Its economy under threat due to locust invasion and the outbreak of covid-19, Kenya is facing troubled times and its citizens start to pack their bags to leave Nairobi fearing an imminent asteroid collision ... A man in Valenzuela City shuts down his laptop and lies down on his bed nurturing positive hopes that NASA would be able to intercept the oncoming asteroid ... A dweller in Naihati elaborates his plans to save his people and their cattle ... Hugging her helpless parents, a daughter starts to cry as she witnesses the panic in the streets of Rio das Ostras ...... Only days left to live, a native in Bihar explains how Laser Ablation might help to deflect the oncoming asteroid ... Watching the misty coastline of Bergen, with its numerous fjords and rocky mountains, a Nordic girl attempts to define the magnitude of the potential asteroid impact comparing it with the 2012DA14 micro-asteroid ... A rhetorical narration delivered by a Cape Town city dweller about the unleashing of the wrath of the asteroid at the utopian state of South Africa ...... Taking desperate measures at desperate times, a brother braves his own death to save his little sister ... Asteroid (4179) Toutatis hurtles down on Valencia and as Spaniards wait for their final hour, the asteroid changes its mind at the last moment ... Singapore similarly saved! ... But Islamabad is not so lucky and ripples appear on the Earth's surface as the energy of a nuclear explosion is transferred to it; the structures become nothing but clouds of dust as they are reduced to rubble ... Juiz de Fora reduces to ashes within days ... Brazillia is no more ... A girl travels backwards in time from the 38th Year of Inferno to the present day and gathers information about what devastated her previous life in the Philippines and realizes that she is the earth's salvation ... The year is 2060 and a scientist from Chadian Astronomy Institution or CAI explains the modern asteroid defense system of the African Continent ... Comet Encke converts itself to an asteroid at the last moment and claims the lives of stargazers leaving the protagonist alone in the world ... ENJOY ALL THOSE STORIES FOR FREE!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Chinthaka Nanayakkara
• Release date: Nov 15, 2020

Chinthaka Nanayakkara

Chinthaka Nanayakkara is a former Brand Ambassador of Sweek who served the platform when it was only two years old. So far he has organized six writing projects on behalf of Sweek (which he fondly calls as WRIPES), attracting hundreds of aspiring writers and thousands of readers from around the world.WRIPES are a unique type of writing projects that aim to encourage beginners to develop their stories as mini e-books through collaborative feedback. Editing of mini e-books is carried out by Chinthaka himself and if the books interest him, he designs lovely book covers for them, lists them in blog posts and features them in promotional videos - everything for free!Chinthaka is a guest blogger in https://www.ouruniverseforkids.com and https://www.spacekidzindia.inWRIPE-7 is scheduled to start on January 2021 and if you are interested in trying your luck to be picked up as a potential author please type 'asteroid2020' in search bar in Sweek home page and start promoting WRIPE-6.For more info, contact Chinthaka at: [e-mail] lives in Colombo, Sri Lanka.

Book preview

Preface

This e-book is the culmination of my sixth writing project which I had organized in 2020 to raise awareness among modern youth and aspiring writers around the world about the importance of World Asteroid Day.

My first writing project took place in 2018 aligned to the International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust and during the next two years, five more projects were similarly held, based on International Mother Language Day, World Water Day and International Asteroid Day.

However, only the sixth writing project evolved successfully into an e-book (which is what you are reading now) containing most of the stories published online by the participants of that project. There was an attempt to produce an e-book based on the stories produced at the first writing project. But it did not happen.

You might be wondering why I am attracted to organizing writing projects based on UN recognized international days. Am I working for the UN? Am I making money out of it? Or is it just my hobby?

To make it clear at the very start, no, I am not working for the United Nations. And also I am not making any money out of my writing projects. Not yet. If the UN recognizes my work and gives me an official approval, I might. Until then, no.

That leaves only one explanation to all this. Yes, you may call it that I am doing all this as a hobby. The situation might change down the road. But at the moment, yes, it is my hobby.

But it is a hobby I have created on my own. A hobby that is created through lots of sacrifices. And all sacrifices were made with earnestness and genuine desire to help emerging new writers in the modern world.

It was towards the latter part of 2017 I developed an interest in this type of work. I was working unpaid on a voluntary basis for a writing platform called Sweek that was headquartered in Rotterdam, Netherlands. One of my key challenges was to retain new users who left the platform as quickly as they came. Trying various methods to find a solution to resolve this issue, I organized these projects.

I went behind those who published new stories, invited them to my writing projects that were based on UN days, offered free editing of manuscripts, free book covers to adorn their stories, free promoting of their stories using blog posts and Youtube videos, free translations of their stories to other languages and helped start their own blogs to share the experiences they gained by participating in my projects; everything for free.

If I happen to identify a writer who is really talented, I even offered to co-author a book with him. I would edit his book personally and ensure that the book finds its way to the best online bookstores in the world. Let me reiterate: everything for free.

You haven't heard about that kind of hobby before, right?

Already, several participants of my writing projects have gained these benefits at least to some degree. Already, one writer of this writing project is developing a draft manuscript under my guidance; she is only fifteen years old but she is expected to finish her book with me before the end of 2021.

In this e-book that you are going to read, you would come across similar personalities. Some of them were already on paperback before I met them. But others are still new to the writing field. Whatever maybe their situation, this e-book is definitely one of their milestones in their writing life. For those who are still hesitant to call themselves authors, their next step, as the fifteen year old I mentioned, is to start writing their own book, and I would be at their side.

That opportunity is available for you as well, if you are hoping to become an author someday. I expect to organize my seventh writing project in 2021 and you are very welcome to join it. If you are lucky, your name might be in the next e-book I will be publishing in 2022.

Good luck!

Colombo, Sri Lanka

November 2020

Events that led to the publication of this book

Before I do an introduction on this book, I think it is better to provide a brief history regarding the events that lead to the publication of this book. This brief history covers a time span of three years, starting somewhere in 2017.

However, if it is not for my writing projects, there might not have been any such history to talk about.

My writing projects made their debut appearance in 2018. At the time I was a brand ambassador working on a volunteer basis for a writing platform called Sweek. As I have already explained in the Preface, our top priority task was to increase user engagement with the platform and to retain them with us as long as possible.

There were other brand ambassadors who were working with me and we tried various methods; offering reviews for the recently published stories, designing book covers for them and so forth. Yet, no matter what we tried, the rate of users leaving the platform remained unchanged.

Staring at the ceiling, I contemplated hard on this. I felt that there has to be some kind of strategy, some kind of tool or some kind of literary product that I have to create anew and introduce afresh to avert this new-user-drain.

The idea came from experience. Not long ago, only the previous year (that was 2017), I had participated in a collaborative writing project hosted by an Australian website called Needleinthehay. Its conclusion was an e-book published in Smashwords and a paperback on Blurb.

The book was called Seasons of Discontent and was edited by Sophie L. Macdonald containing: Barefoot in the Snow by Ari Carrington, Grafton Leigh by John Falconer, The Cold by Sarah Henry, Snowmen and Hoarfrost by Sophie L Macdonald, The Edge of Winter by Tobias Madden, A Stone's Throw by Georgia Willis and AEA Triangle … yeah… written by me.

Living up to its name, Seasons of Discontent dragged for many months before it became available as an e-book and a paperback on 10th December 2017. Although I did not make a dime out of it by participating in it, I could not deny the fact that I became some kind of author at the end of it. True, I refrained from participating anymore in Needleinthehay collaborations in the coming years but it did not prevent me from paying a quiet visit to that cute little website time and again - even to this day.

I decided that I would try out this writing collaboration idea with Sweek users. But I promised myself that they would experience the event in a better way. And differently. That is why I organized all my writing projects aligned to international days recognized by the United Nations. It brought more meaning to my projects as it helped raise awareness among international communities on really critical issues that, in many occasions, directly or indirectly, could challenge the existence of all humanity.

It was January 2018. Just round the corner was 27th January, the International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust. I set to work.

There were about a hundred or so Followers on my profile in Sweek. I informed them with a friendly message that I am offering a free edit and a free book cover for any holocaust-based story submitted to me before the end of the third week of the month.

Thirteen writers succeeded to finalize their drafts as the 27th January drew near. They were: Abi by Harshita Nagar, Brave Few by Shakhzoda Vareberg, An Encounter with a Holocaust Survivor by Ruchi, 27th JAN, 2018 by Amante De La Musica (Ganga Agnihotri), The Holocaust: Looking Ahead by Jay Smith Brand, Destination Death and The Mass Murder (poem) by Srivalli Rekha, In Remembrance by Chivalry, Last Thoughts by Manisha Sahoo, The Night of Shattered Myth and Dororthy is a Jewish Name (Play) by Swatilekha Roy, Blue is My Favorite Color by Alanah Andrews and For Ofira by Rashmi Agrawal.

Some of the manuscripts needed editing. Others passed at first attempt. Google Docs was a great help here which enabled easy sharing and collaborative editing.

With the help of Canva.com, I designed a range of book covers with a common theme that matched the Holocaust Day and emailed them to the participants of the project. On 27th January 2018, I released the first promotional video showcasing the books. Everyone was excited. So was I. My small time writing project had succeeded in retaining 13 writers within the platform for a one whole month and kept them highly active, reading the works of others, Liking, Following, Commenting, Sharing and communicating through the platform around the clock. The total read count of all 13 books exceeded 3.5K.

Seeing the success of the idea I announced the launch of my second writing project immediately after the first. This time it was International Mother Language Day due 21 February.

The stories that made to the finals were: Coming Home To Find My Mother Language by Meenal, Your Tongue Shall Set You Free by Egghead, Mother tongue: The language of Heart and Mind by AlphaWrites, Give Me A Sign by Laura Van De Steene, Mother Language is a Gift by Zondra Aceman, I Still Remember the Language Movement by R. A. Rooney, Thamizh by Sameera Anum and In An Unknown Land, Meeting My Own by Sann Hart.

Unhesitatingly, I planned for March. And planned it big. 22 March was World Water Day. This time I was determined to make my projects heard by the United Nations and I called the Sweekers for a third time.

As I knew beforehand, they enthusiastically came up with their drafts. Out of them I selected: Heaven on Earth by Arya Ashok Dixit, Water is Alive by Gigi De Grau, Epitome of