Tag: people

The Great Adventure

It’s June now, but I’d still like to think March was recent. Having said that, I’d give anything to revisit my recent visit to the western borders of India. I’ve written quite a lot of my travels, and spoken about it even more. To be honest, I brought back over a thousand photos, and I needed a way to flaunt them.

adventure

But it wasn’t just about the charming sights and endless stream of photos. There were so many new things I had to get used to, and I did. It wasn’t easy being thrown into a vehicle with five others and travelling uphill with my head swirling. But I got used to it. I had no choice, but I enjoyed it too.

And we travelled with kids. Small kids, infants, even. That was my tipping point. I wasn’t keen on having kids on the trip, because they have a tendency to ruin it for the rest of us. And sure enough, there were a few tears, a few tantrums, and plenty of throwing up incidents I’d rather erase from my memory. It’s not something I liked or would recommend, but I got used to it. I just had to accept the fact that we were a party of twenty four, including three senior citizens and five kids, braving a temperature as low as -6˚C.

I hated having to give up the window seats and making small conversation every time we stopped for tea. But when I look back at the whole trip, I have nothing but memories I cherish. I enjoyed every bit of it. It was hard at first, and I had my own inertia to overcome, but once I did, I saw how beautiful even mundane things like a steep U bend became. It brought me closer to the people I travelled with. I hadn’t expected to meet a sixty-five year old eager to jump into a freezing lake. It showed me a different side of the people I thought I knew. I hadn’t liked the idea of travelling with my colleagues’ parents, but I had judged too soon. Because by the time we returned, they had became as close to me as my own parents.

It was an adventure of a lifetime.

The Unwanted

Sometimes, we get so caught up in our own worlds that we miss the little things around us. Like in a flower show, all we see are well-watered flowers, settled in protective enclosures. But there are other stuff around that aren’t as noticeable. Like a broken twig, or a timid squirrel scurrying through dense feet.

It was quite the same when we went on a trip to Kodaikanal.  We stayed in a hotel with bountiful linen, wooden windows, and sumptuous meals enough to make anyone drowsy. And there was also the most beautiful scenery around us. Flowers of all kinds, huddled in bunches, and pruned to perfection. But there were a few extras as well. Little petals peeking through the rocks, braving the gardener’s sharp shears.

They were the unwanted, the ones the world could do without. They were the spares.

spare

You Won’t Be Read, and It’s Ok

Writing for a living is tough. Not everything you write will see the real world, and you have to be ok with it.

Becuase when it comes to writing for someone other than yourself, you have to say what they want to read or need to know.

There’s no darlings in professional writing. You don’t have to like what you write. If it works, it works.

And it’s hard. For someone who wants to write drunk and publish as is. For someone who wants to write just because she wants to write. It’s hard when a personal blogger starts writing for her company’s “business-class audience.” You’ll have to make sacrifices you don’t want to. Talk to people you’d rather avoid. You have to smile as you accept their pin pointing as sense — though, most of the time, it is.

Rework becomes your watch word. Deliberate word choices, phrases, and jargon become your world while a clever pun takes the backseat. Because, remember, remember, your audience isn’t pun(n)y.

An official “content writer,” has no balance. You don’t know where the “need for content” ends and where the love for words begins. It’s constant juggling between contrasting worlds, and it puts you off, it blocks the writer within, and scoffs at the crouching figure at work staring deep into her laptop screen.

But somewhere along the way, you realise it’s ok. Sometimes, someone who knows better will cut off most your content. It takes time to see the big picture, or think for the greater good, but you’ll see it. You’ll see that nothing matters more than seeing your audience satisfied. And, somehow, those sleepless nights of tapping away at the keyboard fades into thin air.

Then it’s yet another day at work.

What’s Life?

circus

Jump through a hoop

and walk a tightrope

pull off a jig on the side

laugh like you like it.

They toss you in the air

and jeer at your jest.

You hang on to a pole,

waltz through the vault,

it’s all about flexibility —

twisting to their humour.

You have your training,

in swinging and spinning

whether a club or your head,

you look like a buffoon,

part of the human zoo.

Life’s a circus, ain’t it?

Let It Go

November 24th 2013. The day I felt most proud of myself. It’s still unmatched.

let it go

That was the day I finished my first draft of my first full-length novel. I had taken on the National Novel Writing Month challenge and succeeded. We went to the beach that day, and I soaked my feet in the salty depths of the ocean, while my heart soared beyond the setting rays of gold.

I had completed the longest writing project I had undertaken. And every one else my age was shuffling about, preparing for the semester exams. Fifty thousand words in less than thirty days — I still look at it as my biggest achievement.

And like every NaNoWriMo participant, I pledged to myself not let go of my work. I promised I would edit my draft, and then edit it some more, until it’s good enough for the eyes of a professional editor. I made a plan, I sketched out how I’d work and planned to get my novel published within a year.

In the days that followed, I tried editing, but I kept dozing off on my laptop. I kept telling myself I deserve some rest. Three years later, I’m still editing my draft. But I rested way too much. Now every time I open up my draft, I stifle a yawn.

I’ve come to a bitter realisation. My novel is boring. If I can’t get through it myself, how’re others supposed to?

So I forced myself to make it more interesting. I tried reworking one sentence in one chapter at a time. But it was hard. I had put it to rest for far too long that I had changed so much from the person I was when I wrote it.

I had been in a writing job, and when I look at my draft now, I can see all the blunders I couldn’t see before. I had grown as a writer and an internal editor, and as the person I am now, I can’t revive that piece I wrote three years ago.

I am now a mature writer, I know the perils of using too many passive sentences, the rules of a semicolon, and the effect of an adverb-stuffed piece of writing. And then I see my own work, and feel dejected. I see all the mistakes I now try to avoid. And when I set out to correct them, I feel like I should rather scrap the whole thing and rewrite it. Even the plot seems too weak for a reader to get through third chapter.

So now, it lays there. Taking up most of the my storage space on Evernote. I don’t think reworking the story would do any good. Perhaps I should just let it be. As a reminder of my dedication. As a testament to my ability to show up everyday and write. It’s one of those things you don’t brag about but swell as you think of it.

So, I’m ready to let it go. I tried publishing it on my blog for National Blog Posting Month. I got a few regular readers, a handful of likes, and a couple of comments. But that’s all. Maybe it’s time to put it to sleep, and try again. I’ll try another NaNoWriMo, another story, another fifty thousand words. And maybe this time, I’ll write it proper and edit it sober.