Writing under pressure!

A professor at school often told us that you can't hold down a full-time job and be a full-time writer. Choose.
I always thought this was unfair. She encouraged bar tending/ waitressing... anything that didn't tap into your
brain juice. Five years after college, I see the grain of truth embedded into that statement. I'm a full time creative lead with an organization where the work sucks up every ounce of my creativity. And I come back home dead tired and too burnt out. It takes me most of the weekends to re-energize and get back to full steam. By then it's Monday and I'm back to being burnt out again. But my passion for writing was strong enough that after much reading up on Zen and the art of living in the moment, I came up with a few of my own tips and tricks to employ my creativity for myself.


The early morning call

My mind is at its freshest when I wake up in the morning. So I began setting my alarm clock to ten minutes earlier than the time I usually wake up at. The moment I'm awake, I take 2 minutes to center my focus, grab the pen and notepad from beside my pillow and write... it could be a continuation of a story from the previous day or just hashing out a plot...whatever it is, I'm training my brain to think when I want it to think

Take a breather

I find that it helps when I take a few moments off from my heavy work load to breathe, really breathe deeply. Just 3 deep breaths leaves me feeling more focused, and I can then segway into my ten-minute doodling

The ten minute doodling

Every two hours, I take ten minutes to put down a ideas and simply write on anything that my brain
happens to think about at that point. This is difficult if you're under a deadline but with practice you'll
be able to sashay in and out of ten minutes of pure creative writing. It's akin to shifting gears when you're on the highway...you go from 4 to 1 and cruise along for a while before you have to get back to 4 again.

Time out Saturday

I tell myself that Saturdays is my writing time. This is the day I take time (I'm a morning person so that's when I work best) to collect all my ten minute doodlings and make sense out of it. Some of the ideas wil see the light of day as short stories or poems, most of them will be filed away for the future. But whichever idea I pick, I make sure I spend atleast an hour on it. When you're in the throes of writing, you can sometimes write a story in half an hour... it's just a matter of dedicating time to it.

The Practice
Let's face it, all writing is a matter of discipline. A good writer writes often, a great writer makes it a matter of discipline to write atleast a few pages everyday. So practice practice practice. Sometimes when it seems like the words just won't flow or the story is stuck, don't stop, keep writing. Because practice makes perfect.

Cecil the Lost Sheep

I'm an online book scavenger, which basically means any downtime I get at office I'm on scribd or searching for websites that will let me read books for free. I get my fix, and don't have to pay for it. (I know, sad isn't it?). So, I was on scribd the other day and came across this cute children's book published by Zondervan. Cecil the Lost Sheep takes a parable from the Bible and makes it into a very non-religious story. I got the sense that I could share this story with kids as a stand alone piece or relate it with the Bible... would work either way. The book encouraged me to keep alive my dream of writing Bible stories.... here you go

Cecil the Lost Sheep, Full Book

Cows From Outer Space

I love anything fantastically fantasy... and in my own way I'm experimenting with writing fantasy stories for kids... which was why when I came across this story by Jeanne Modesitt I was awestruck by its simplicity! Who would have thought that meeting 26 bovines could be such a fun experience!

 

Cows From Outer Space

One day a large spaceship landed in a park just outside

New York City. The doors lifted up, and out walked twenty-six

cows. "Greetings!" said one of the cows to several children

who'd gathered round the ship. "Please allow me to introduce

us. I'm Claude, and these are Cathy, Clyde, Carlos, Clark,

Connie, Cooper, Calvin, Casey, Clara, Carmen, I Cory, Cindy,

Christy, Conrad, Calli, Carol, Cleo, Clifford, Clive, Curtis,

Chester, Clarence, Clint, Carl, and Candy." "We're on vacation,"

said Candy, and each of the cows gave the children a big smile.

The children were absolutely delighted with the cows and were

soon helping them set up their lounge chairs and unfold their

umbrellas. Friendly chatter filled the air. After more than an

hour of amiable talk, the cow Carol said, "I've got an idea.

Why don't we have afternoon tea in London?" "Wonderful," said

the rest of the cows.

"Can we come, too?" asked the children, jumping up and

down. "Of course," said the cows, "but you'll have to ask your

parents first." And so off the children ran. "Mom? Dad?" they

asked. "Can we have tea in London with the cows from outer

space?" The parents looked at each other and winked. What

charming children they had! What imaginations! "Of course,"

they said. "Just be sure to be back before supper." "Thanks!"

said the children, and back to the spaceship they ran. "We can

come!" they cried when they reached the cows. "We can

come!" "Splendid!" said the cows, and they all boarded the

spaceship and flew off. Twenty minutes later-cow ships travel

awfully fast-the travelers arrived in the middle of London.

Several people gathered round the ship, watching the cows and

children step out. The adults shook their heads at the scene

before them. "What a foolish thing!" they said. "A bunch of

people dressed as cows." "Probably trying to sell a new brand

of cheese," others grumbled. "What a waste of money. " The

English children, however, knew cows from outer space when

they saw them. They ran up to the spaceship and said, "May

we please join you?" "Of course! Of course!" said the cows and

the American children. And so it was that they spent a most

delightful afternoon together.

They drank tea, visited museums, and strolled . the

promenades. After a while, however, it was time for the cows

to go home. They hugged and kissed the 1 English children and,

together with the American children, boarded their ship and

flew back to New York. When they landed, the cows bid their

farewells. "Adieu! Good-bye!" they said tearfully to the

children, whom they'd grown quite fond of by now.

"Good-bye," said the children, who were equally sad to

see the cows go. "Don't forget to write." "We won't," said the

cows, and then they boarded their spaceship and flew up into

the evening sky. II During supper that night, both the English

and the American children told their parents of the wonderful

afternoon they'd spent with the cows. And the parents smiled

to themselves and thought, What imaginations children have! I

wonder what they'll think of next.

The Confessions of a Fitness Failure

That's the title I would give my book if I ever decide to do a Joan Collins. Ok, so, I'm your average southie woman with hips that could support the Himalaya shelf, and thighs that jingle to a tune of their own. I've tried almost every workout that has walked the length of a gym, and found it hard to keep to even one single routine past day two. You see I have EDD (Exercise Deficiency Disorder)... my bones actually creak if I get up too quickly, and just 3 counts of touch-your-toes has me huffing and puffing like I've been running the NY marathon.

The sad thing is it wasn't always like this.. in my "salad days" (to quote the delightful Georgette Heyer)... I took pride in working out for 2 hours at the gym - a sweaty combination of cardio, light weights, aerobics and gut crunching floor exercises. And then I turned 30, landed a 6 foot model for a husband, and my "excido" (in my planet the root of the word can be traced back to a marriage between exercise + libido) just collapsed. Now I've joined the ranks of the women who would love to smack those skinny bitches whose weight goes into a black hole.... seriously, I don't see thighs, or hips, or boobs, or even a teeny weeny tummy after they have just chowed down on tacos with extra cheese, and a side of double baked beans. I inhale the aroma of a cheeseburger, and Wham! I have just expanded horizontally.

Anyways, after much Freudian analysis about why my husband named by wobbly bits, I decided to be a phoenix and (exer)rise again. But this time I'm better armed (ah ha! Got you, you procrastinating wench!)... instead of running till my knees whither from the shock of the pavement, and pumping weights till I look like a female version of a very maniacal Arnold S., and doing aerobics while worrying about what gravity was doing to my boobs... I turned to Bollyrobics! Yes, you read that right.... Bollyrobics! It's what you get when Bollywood meets and mingles with Aerobics.

And I now tempt my will power by throwing it new treats... all in the form of dance workout videos. From Rohan Da Silva, to Shiamak Davar, to Dirty Dancing, to Hip Hop, to Belly Dancing... you name it, I've sashayed my hips to it. So, all you lovely ladies out there (and all you boyos too)... if you're like me and would rather roll over and die than trudge to one more gym session... here are some youtube videos to get you started on dancing your way to weight loss!

hip hop for the abs

If Shakira can, so can you

Have the time of your life

To The Foot from its Child

A poem by Pablo Neruda that makes me want to cry and kiss my feet...


To the Foot from Its Child

The child's foot doesn't know yet that it's a foot,
and wants to be a butterfly or an apple.

But then stones and pieces of glass,
streets, ladders,
and the paths of the hard earth
go on teaching the foot that it can't fly,
that it can't be round fruit on a branch.
The child's foot then
was overcome, it fell
in the battle,
was a prisoner,
condemned to live in a shoe.


Gradually, without light,
it started to know the world in its own way,
without knowing the other foot, shut in,
exploring life like a blindman.

These soft nails
of quartz, in a bunch,
hardened, changed into
opaque matter, into hard horn,
and the small petals of the child
got crushed, unbalanced,
took the form of eyeless reptiles,
worms' triangular heads.
And then they grew calluses,
they were covered
with tiny volcanoes
of death, unacceptable
hardenings.

But this blind thing walked
without respite, without stopping
hour after hour,
one foot and then the other,
now a man's
or a woman's,
above,
below,
through fields, through mines,
through department stores and ministries,
backward,
outside, inside,
forward,
this foot laboured with its shoe,
it hardly took time
to be naked in love or in sleep,
it walked, they walked
until the whole man stopped.

And then it went down
into the earth and knew nothing,
because there everything was dark,
it didn't know that it had ceased being a foot,
if they had buried it so that it could fly
or so that it could
become an apple.

A poem in remembrance of happiness...

Where is happiness found?
I’ve looked under rocks of gold laced with desire
I’ve searched through cotton combed with lust
The annoying child that it is
Never heeds my call
Never lets me pinch its cheeks
In my mother’s chest of bitter memories
Even skeletons don’t remembers when happiness
Last settled on their bony fingers
I met the Yogi
With his matted locks and lice that trail down his face
“I became one with the universe in search of happiness,” he says.
“So, where is happiness found?” I ask
“I don’t know.” He replies.
“To be one with the universe I sacrificed all emotions.” 
  
-Annie Besant Jon - 

Pratham Books: Book Review : The Royal Toothache

Please find my review for Pratham Books...I was given a free copy of this charming children's story by Sanjiv Jaiswal...

Pratham Books: Book Review : The Royal Toothache

Pratham Books is one of my favorite sites for all things related to books and kids. They are a well-spring of information on workshops, book releases, author interviews etc. In their own words, Pratham Books was created in order to:

• Provide children with access to low cost, high quality books
• Publish books in multiple Indian languages
• Provide publishers with a platform to create affordable reading material for children.
• Bring authors, illustrators, and producers of books together to builda reading country.
• Urge the corporate sector to actively participate in this process

Where a writer finds work

During my school days in the U.S., when I wasn't stacking books at the library, dealing with young blondes who thought War & Peace were two different books, trying to get a hang of cooking for myself, understanding the complicated code of American fashion, and thanking God for Karls Jr. burgers, I was trying to make money on the side. Freelancing is a wonderful world of banging your head on your laptop, downing enough coffee to send the world into a crisis, negotiating Google with the ease of a mariner... all this while you're trying to whip up 5-6 articles (300-500 words) a day that would sell at $5 a piece. Back then $30 was my ticket to a social life. But freelancing was a definite art... reserved for those who knew their subject from object, verb from adverb, and the usage of articles. And then I moved to India...
... and realized that young 18-year-olds, who could barely stitch a sentence together in propah English, were earning an average of 2000 Rs per day by simply spinning out works that would have made the Mary Poppins type of proofreader throw her pencil down and take enough Valium to leave a small village floating in never ending ecstasy. Which meant that the people who paid me $5 for an article when I was still in school, were now offering me $1 for that same type of work... and throwing my highly polished resume and portfolio at them didn't help in the least. The likes of me had been overthrown by some Meenakumari who was willing to write a full length essay for a dollar... and eagerly churned out 5 of those in a day! But I still persevere.... still knock on the doors of freelancedom, still demand quality rates for quality works... and feel like the heroine in Mother India. Sigh.
But for all you aspiring freelancers out there, here is a site that helped me find people who wanted serious writing and not seriously compromised writing. Happy Freelancing Sisters/ Brothers!

chillibreeze