Tag: writing

After a Year

I’ve spent the last year publishing a post every day. Today, it feels like a huge achievement, at least for me. When I started this blog, my brother — my sole supporter at that time — encouraged me to write a post every day. Whether I was sick or had an exam, I had to have a post out no matter what.

I couldn’t because I didn’t know what to write half the time. And when I took up the task in 2016, it was no different. Often, I’d have no topic sentence, no conflicting opinions, and no interest, whatsoever, in inflicting myself and others with bashful political stances. I couldn’t think what else I’d write about.

Some days, I forced myself to write something — a thought, a quote, or anything — because I had to keep going. Those were tough days; days I had to battle the block and doubt my abilities at the same time. So many days I wondered the purpose of my writing, and if people would bother at all to read. But when morning dawned, I came back to my computer and wrote. Because I just couldn’t do without.

However, for all the struggling, I didn’t write glorious pieces of prose. I just wrote a lot of crap, instead. I couldn’t help it. I even thought the bad writing was a result of forced writing, but I couldn’t help but write on. After three or four months of writing a post a day, it became a habit and I ached when I didn’t write anything in the morning. By midday, I panicked.

It pained me to put myself through what I knew was an ordeal that I didn’t have to. I knew people would understand if I just told them I’d had a bad day and don’t feel like doing a blog tonight. And yet, I’m glad I pushed myself. Today, looking back at the way I’ve blogged throughout the year, it feels rewarding. My blog has become a part of my being. It’s become my nature — my thing — to write something every morning. Even my colleagues know I come into work early just to write.

It came with a cost, though. Writing every day was taxing, and I had to give up a lot of other stuff. Like Facebook, for instance. I didn’t have the time to post pictures of myself pouting in front of punch bowls. I didn’t have the time to post quirky 140 characters, and my Instagram posts became so rare that my followers got notifications: “Your friend has posted something for the first time in a long time.” But none of that worried me too much. Sure, I would’ve liked a few likes, but I had made a choice to focus on my writing.

I wrote a lot of opinions. I figured out I had opinions over matters I thought I didn’t have opinions over. And since I knew people wanted to read what I wrote, I wanted to give them some sequence. I learnt to warp the chaos within to bring order — even if only for one post at a time.

The results were satisfying. I managed to hit a milestone of 500 followers. I know it’s a small number for someone who’s been in the blogosphere for a while. Despite that, though, I’m happy I’ve got a few people who I know want to read my blog. After a year of blogging, I’ve found myself out and I’ve found out how much I love my blog.

Writer’s Trauma

About three years ago, I was thrilled when I finished writing an entire novel. I had great expectations for it. It didn’t see the darkness of the press or sit in bookstores where fans cradled it and smelled the fresh print, as I had hoped. But it’s on Inkitt.com, and that’s better than it being locked inside my cupboard. A few days ago, I got an email from Inkitt about a new contest called the Teaser Awards. It’s pretty straightforward: I have to write a 200-character teaser for my novel.

Fun, I thought. It would be a great way to persuade people to read my story. I needed more readers because most of my cheerleaders (immediate friends and family) didn’t even get past the first chapter. It’s not because the story was crappy, (I checked), but other pressing stuff came up. And with this teaser assignment, I thought I’d use my creativity to re-ask my friends and family to give my novel a second chance.

I sat down to write.

Three years was a long time ago. Of course, I know every scene almost by heart, but when I had to drill it down to a 200-character teaser, I got stuck. Not that I had so much to say and didn’t know what to pick, but because I had nothing at all to say. All of a sudden, the story I spent hours pondering on and nurturing, didn’t seem interesting enough. I tried digging my memory for something worth talking about, and it was as if my story was worth nothing. I didn’t have adrenaline pumping action, no sword fights, no heated arguments, not even a trace of romance. For fifty chapters, I had rambled on an on about a normal girl going about her normal life. I didn’t know what to say in my teaser.

I panicked. If I couldn’t find excitement in the story, myself, how would anyone else find it? I was so shattered I couldn’t work on my teaser anymore. I gave it a break, a day. Then it hit me: perhaps that’s why my family couldn’t read the story. Because there was nothing interesting about the everyday life of a teenager.

It was a depressing revelation, because when I wrote the story, I thought I’d made it as relatable as possible. A handful of readers told me they got bored after the first few chapters, but again, folks who did manage to read the whole story told me they loved it. (Well, not “I loved it” verbatim, but most of them said things like, “great work.”) And now every time someone tells me I’ve done a decent job, I can’t help my widening lips, my glowing face, and my joyous swelling, heart.

That’s how it is: You’d never know how others would react to your stories. There will always be mixed feelings and varied reviews. Some would like your story, some would hurl at it. Some give you constructive feedback, some would just throw unhelpful opinions. Variety is the essence of life. And it’s also the curse of writing.

I did rework my teaser to this:

What if you don’t know your calling? You’d try to figure it out, making decisions you’d regret – or love. You’d break your heart a few times, too. Until one day, you’ll succeed and all will be well.

If you think it works, you can read the story here. I would appreciate your feedback, whether good and bad.

Silent, Suffering

silent-suffering

The block had hit hard.

Poised for the first word in days,

“Martyr,” her hand wrote.

Aftermath of a Challenge

One morning a couple of weeks ago, I sat in front of an open document, fingers poised over my keyboard waiting for the words to flow.

They didn’t.

I was stuck. I didn’t know what to do. I sat there for about an hour before deciding to do something else. I browsed through The Daily Post looking for ideas when I found the section on blogging challenges.

It couldn’t hurt, I thought and dove in. The first challenge that interested me was the Incredible Blogger Marathon Challenge. Now that is one good title. It triggered my curiosity and piqued my ego to just the right level. I wanted to be that Incredible Blogger. And a posting marathon is a challenge I could take.

incredible-blogger-marathon-challenge

I took it. It was a ten-post challenge, but I could take up to 15 days to complete it. I challenged myself to publish a post a day and finish the challenge in ten days.

The next two weeks was one of the best spells I’ve had in my blogging experience. It wasn’t easy as eating pie. It was as complex as baking one myself. But it was great fun. I had to think in ways I hadn’t done before. And the weirdest thing is that I had to first explain to myself how I felt about certain topics, before giving words to my thoughts.

It warped my head, but it gave me something to write about every day. It kept me going, even if I didn’t want to.

And now, it feels wonderful when I look back. It forced me to explore a whole new area in writing and I’m glad I took the challenge.

Have you ever taken up a blogging challenge? How did you feel afterward?

Read Anew

Reading for pleasure, reading at leisure. Reading for news, tolerating the ads. Reading for exams, scrambling for points. Every day, we read something or the other, for some purpose or other. And our purpose often defines our perspective.

People who read newspapers and online articles do so for information. They don’t care who the writer is, how long it took to write the piece, or how the writer feels about the thing they’re reporting. That’s just news for the sake of news.

Some other people read for pleasure. My friends bury their faces in fiction or non-fiction just to get high in the power of words strung to one another. Reading, for them, is a hobby. It’s an activity that keeps their clocks ticking, at the end of which they have something to talk about, and sometimes even think about. Books for them are havens of stories, packed with adventure and action, letting them peek into a life they wish they’d had. When they read stories, they venture into a new world, a world where everything seems interesting, where everything is likeable. For such people, reading is an escape from a reality they can’t alter.

And then there’s the third kind: The ones who read the writer. I didn’t know this was a thing until I realised I belonged to this category. When I read a book, an article online, or even a magazine advertisement, I don’t just take the words in. I notice. I stop, I reread, I analyse the word choices, and I wonder if I could’ve written it better. I may, at first, shake my head at unnecessary commas, or curl my lips at descriptive repetition, but I also go wow at the imagery at the end of a sentence.

Reading for me has transcended beyond reading for pleasure. It’s now more of understanding the writer, trying to forge a bond with the author. It’s interesting how a writer’s mind works, because when they put words to paper, they don’t just communicate a story they thought we’d like. They, instead, make us realise what they realised. They educate the reader, conveying not just an idea, but a conviction. No writer ever publishes a book that they don’t believe in. Every word, every extra syllable that the reader reads is because the writer wanted them to read it.

But ever too often, we don’t acknowledge the valiant efforts of a writer. We judge a book within the first couple of pages. We verdict books without mercy. We use countless descriptions to condemn a book; too boring, a complex narrative, a stupid plot, emotionless tone, and so much more. And yet, all the while, we forget that the writer did all those with purpose.

A writer doesn’t want to write a boring book. But a boring fictional narrative from the first person point of view is purposeful. It’s a subtle indication from the writer to the reader that the (fictional) narrator had a troubled past that altered her life altogether. Throughout a story, writers drop hints for readers to pick up. And that’s why the same book feels different when we read it a few years later. We see things we haven’t seen before. We realise that the extra comma had some meaning. And so we read with extra care, we hunt for the clues, we wonder why the writer is being repetitive. And when we do that, we become mature. From reading about adventures, we make reading in itself an adventure.

ibmc-9

I’ve signed up for the Incredible Blogger Marathon Challenge. It’s a ten-task-challenge that can span up to fifteen days. This post is my response to the ninth day: Be a baby challenge. The challenge is to give a new perspective to something commonplace.