Day 27 - Editing

I've written before about my inner editor who wants to edit all my words even before they are on the page. After I started editing professionally, the inner editor became annoyingly omnipresent, but after a while, she settled down into her niche in a part of my brain. Though she does show up from time to time, I am more successful in silencing her for a while, until I'm ready to summon her up.

About editing itself - there's something beautiful about getting a piece of prose to its final, presentable form. With each writer, the challenges are different. And the more I edit, the better I become at recognizing what needs to be done with a certain piece of text.

Also, there are different levels of editing. Some manuscripts need heavy editing, where I need to shake up entire passages and put them in a different form. Some need lighter editing, and some just need a once-over. But each one is difficult in its own way, and I change font styles and sizes during each round of edit to ensure that I've missed nothing. It is tiring, but fulfilling.

Besides, it is a lovely feeling when clients have good things to say about you. Quick link to my testimonial page here!

Day 7 - The Writer's 12-step guide to reacting to a win

1) Receive news of a win/acceptance/publication/good review

2) Dance around the house.

3) Blow your own trumpet on social media.

4) Read the piece that won/was published. Pat yourself on the back. "I'm so brilliant!"

5) Re-read the piece. "Did I really write that? Hmm. Must have been one inspired moment."

6) Re-re-read the piece. "Seriously, I don't think I can write like this again."

7) Eat chocolate. "I can never write another word ever again."

8) Eat more chocolate. "Everybody will come to know that I'm a fraud."

9) Eat a big pack of potato chips. "Why do I even bother getting out of bed?"

10) Pick yourself up, finally, because your family is giving you "the look".

11) Write again. Because, well, you can't not write. And also, deadlines.

12) 1 to 11 - Rinse and Repeat.

An interview

Chandana Banerjee, writer, journalist and health coach, interviewed me about writing and the inspiration behind Avani and the Pea Plant.

She says this about the book. "My son and I enjoy reading this book called Avani and the Pea Plant because of its simple story and gorgeous illustrations. Since we plant vegetables in our garden and just finished gobbling up the sweetest peas, this book about how a little girl discovers a pea plant in her garden felt so familiar and endearing."

Read the interview here.

Also read an interview with the illustrator of the book, Debasmita Dasgupta, of My Father Illustrations. It is her illustrations that have made the book what it is.

Science Media Centre at IISc

A few months ago, I joined  The Science Media Centre at IISc as an intern. I've been doing some work for them, and it's been fun, challenging and educative. Here's a sample: SERIIUS: Leading the world into a solar-energy-based future.

Here comes the god of all things!

My article in yesterday's DH Living - Here comes the god of all things!

Comments welcome!

Last week, DH asked me to write about why Ganesha is so popular. They gave me a deadline which I could almost reach out and touch. I wouldn't have minded such a short deadline had I not had two other deadlines before the DH one. Yet, I decided to step up to it, and accepted it.

Two days later, DH told me that I'd have to give the article 1 day before the original deadline. They apologized too, saying that something had come up and they needed it earlier. So essentially, after I'd sent off the other two articles I'd been working on, I had 24 hours to research, interview and get quotes, write, edit, and turn in this front page article on Ganesha.

Last year, I couldn't have done it. But this year, I did it. In 24 hours, the article was done and dusted.

You can see that the result is not too bad.

So why could I do it this year, and not last year?  It is because I've been writing more regularly this year. My brain is used to churning out decently-formed sentences. Where previously I would have struggled to form good sentences at one go, where I would have had to think much more, wonder which sentence was effective and which wasn't, it was far smoother this year. Regular writing has strengthened my writing muscle.

It is to be noted that not all the writing I've done is publish-worthy. A lot of it is garbage. Yet, the very act of writing regularly has helped.

 

Day 25 - Why I love writing fiction

I love writing fiction.   My world, my rules. 

No interviewing, no struggling to get quotes right.  Not much of fact-checking.  If I cannot confirm a fact, or if I don't find enough information about something that I want to use in my story, I can leave it out altogether, or tweak the story into doing what I want it to do.

I can make my characters listen to me.  Though some of my characters have a tendency to take off in the middle and do what they want to, I can bring them around to do my bidding, if I so wish.

The story on paper always, always, looks blander than the way it sounded in my head.  So I love spending time on my drafts, working with words, sentences, changing them to reflect the moods and the colours in my head.  I revel in the feeling of accomplishment that comes to me when I get a sentence, a phrase - as right as I possibly can at that moment.

Sometimes, a story or a scene doesn't sound quite right.  And then I leave it, and come back to it after a week. Then it strikes me what I need to do to change it.  If that means chopping, and hacking my precious story to pieces, then so be it.  If it means sentencing it to the Recycle Bin, so be it.

But the high of satisfaction that comes from a story well-written is addictive.

And every time I send a story out and it gets accepted for publication, I go back to it and read it immediately, and feel a surge of pride about my story - but it is a kind of detached pride - as if the work was done by my story, not by me.  Good job, kid, I tell my story.  And sit back.

But each time a story sees the light of day, the big pile of incomplete, half-finished, skeletal, first-draft-languishing-in-folder stories seem  to acquire a demonic dimension - as if challenging me, saying, "Oh yeah?  You think you're good?  Let me see how you'll shake me up into a publishable story."  The challenge seems insurmountable.

And every time I'm flushed with the success of one of my stories, I come across, as if by serendipity, stories written by writers who are infinitely more skilled than I am.  And then I withdraw, tail between my legs, into my personal space where I feel inadequate and sorry for myself for a while - and I wonder why I even bother writing - until I feel better enough to feel inspired to reach the next level in my writing.

And then the whole cycle begins again.

Day 11 - How to be a better writer

I get many emails asking me for advice on how to write better.  Ironic, considering that I myself am on that quest!   Anyway, my general response is:  Read more, and write more.

One thing that really helped me was joining the Practice Group at  the Internet Writing Workshop.  Every week, you are given a prompt, and you have to submit a story of less than 400 words based on that.  Then, you critique others' work, and others critique yours.  Through this, I learned:

1) Economy of words - if you have to tell a meaningful story or a snippet of one in 400 words, each word counts.  And I think it has helped me choose my words well.

2) By critiquing others' work, I learned to observe how people wrote.  What worked, what didn't, and why. Very illuminating.

3) Critiques of my work - I agreed with most comments about my work. And they helped me improve.  There were a handful of experienced writers whose critiques I would wish for, and hope for, and when they did critique my work, I always learned so much.

4) I read other people's critiques of other people's works - and that was equally educative.

Apart from all this, you should realize that writing is not just, you know, start at line one, write the whole piece, put the pen down (figuratively), and you're done.  No way.  There are, I'm sure, people who can do that, but the majority of writers, even the big ones, have to slog it out.  The first draft is usually very different from the final version.  Writing is more of editing, and re-writing, and wondering how this could be said better.... it is hard work.

And it takes time.  Like Blaise Pascal said, "I'm sorry I wrote you such a long letter.  I didn't have time to write a short one."  Makes perfect sense!

And ever so often, the lovely picture you have in your head doesn't show up on paper.  And you agonize, and wonder why, when it sounded so great in your head, it is so bland when put in words.  And then you try and polish it, or give up on it.  So if this happens to you, don't worry, you are not alone.

So the next time I get a mail asking me how to become a better writer, I'll just point them to this post, because this is all I know.  And then I will go away to find out more about it myself.