Of new beginnings and the A-Z ebook

Books, new beginnings

There are days when all you want to do is go back to bed. Having survived a slew of such days, with at least a few good (not entirely crap) pages of writing to show for it, I think I’m ready for the weekend.

Part of the curse of a freelance writer is you can’t afford to take a break–most of your breaks are enforced, one way or the other, and so most of them are not good. So I’ve been writing dopey little articles, and making a little money here and there, and hunkering down, waiting for this phase to pass, reading a lot, and taking walks in unlikely places. The weekend would be more of the same.

Happy to have made it ( my entry here)  to the Forties club at the Clarity of the Night Contest, and if you haven’t read any of the entries, head on over and read the winners. I’m amaze at the quality of writing, and learned a lot from the winning entries.

The A-Z challenge e-book I’m working on is now almost ready to be uploaded. It is titled A toZ stories of Life and Death. The cover is ready, and I hope to put it up this Monday.

Hope the new week would bring a new beginning, and to everyone who left such kind comments on my last post, Thank you!

Reaching for writing

The last few days have been dark, with the passing of a family friend. Death is inevitable, I know that, and it is no respecter of age, I know that too. But knowledge and acceptance are two different things.

The weekend went by in a haze of cooking and reading, anything to take myself away from my own thoughts.

Last evening, I went to watch the Lion King musical, an explosion of music and colors—and most importantly (to me), lessons on the circle of life. I only wish I had learned it as well as young Cimba.

I’m still restless for a dozen other reasons, which won’t let me reach my meditation, my writing.

I’m going out for some time, a book and some writing material in hand, and hopefully things will begin to make better sense soon.

A Drabble for the Birthday Blogfest by J C Martin

Drabble for Blogfest

J C Martin is celebrating her first blogiversary. Happy Blogiversary, JC!

To celebrate, JC is hosting a drabble blogfest.

This is my first drabble (a story in exactly 100 words, in case you’re wondering), beginning with the words “A lot can happen in an year..”

The words in the opening phrase are not supposed to be counted, but I’m including them, so the following piece of fiction can be a proper drabble:

==========

A lot can happen in an year, but that year, time stopped.

I waited each Friday for the doorbell, let mother open the door, show him to the piano, call me for lessons. Our playing soothed mother into her afternoon nap.

Mother did not know that little by little, our fingers had strayed. We took turns, playing the piano and each other, casting furtive glances at the door.

One December afternoon, mother woke up before her usual time. Soon after, he left.

Little by little, just as if nothing at all had happened, time started again. It hasn’t stopped since.

Entry for the “Elemental” Flash Fiction Contest

Elemental Flash Fiction Contest by Jason Evans

I discovered Flash fiction last year, and this year took it another step with my WIP of flash, “A to Z stories of Life and Death” as a result of the A-Z blogging challenge.

My latest attempt at this flash (and I’ve been in a writing funk and on a reading spree lately) is for Elemental at The Clarity of Night, which is an awesome contest. Mine is the 90th entry, and the deadline is 8 hours from now, because the organizer, Jason Evans wants to NOT be flooded. I understand him, because the quality of some of the entries is Superlative, and I won’t change places with him for judging them.

Here’s my entry. Would be grateful for comments, as usual.

If you see this post soon enough, maybe you can enter too. I AM sorry, I should have gotten over my blahs sooner and blogged about it about a week ago!

Inspiration Blogfest by Summer Ross

Inspiration Blogfest at My Inner Fairy

Usually, I write pieces on this blog based on writing prompts. But thanks to Summer Ross and her Inspiration Blogfest, I’m going to set a writing prompt today and just leave it at that. Feel free to use it on your blog or anywhere else.

PROMPT: Write a letter to your favorite character in your own fiction, and another to a character you think is not convincing and needs more work. Compare the two, which should help you in fleshing out the second character better.

Look forward to reading the prompts from the participants of this blogfest, and if I’m feeling up to it, will post a few pieces in the coming days based on those.

Happy Writing!

A Drabble for Terribleminds Flash Fiction Challenge

Chuck Wendig holds a Flash Fiction Challenge each Friday, and this is the second time I’m participating.

Since drabbles are my current love, (and Chuck seems to have set no lower word limit) I’ve made it a drabble, based on the picture he has kindly provided us:

The Winner at the Ball

The only remarkable thing about Miranda was her voice like coarse sugar, which proved to be her undoing at the  Annual Charity Halloweeen Ball. The minute she spoke they knew who she was. She never won any prizes.

One year she went clad in a fencing costume with the back of her head split open, dripping blood. Every time someone spoke to her, she coughed and removed a bloodied handkerchief from her lips.

Since no one wanted the handsome carpet ruined by too much blood, they declared the winner early. She went up to the dais, and fell down, quite dead.

In which I navel-gaze and read, then repeat

Books, books!

The last few days, I’ve been reading. A lot. Which means, besides writing, which I consider my only daily intellectual activity that can’t be skipped, I don’t have time for much else.

So, I haven’t been blogging much. Here’s a list of stuff I’m doing —not that I expect you to be interested, but I like to navel-gaze sometimes, and this is,  after all, My blog –

1. I’m reading “Sun After Dark” by Pico Iyer. It is the single most spellbinding travel book I’ve read this year, and it is making me restless. I want to go places, and I don’t mean figuratively.

2. I’m reading 7 other books too, and I have to return them to the library by 31st July.

3. Just as if I wasn’t doing enough reading, I’ve begun The Girl with the Pearl Ear ring in Italian.

4. I’m not cooking, happy instead to heat up stuff I cooked last week. (Don’t worry–it is all healthy and unspoilt–so far.)

5. I’m ignoring my pets, and forgot to feed my angelfish and Lalwant Singh yesterday.

6. I’m trying to draft a story and revise several, as well as finish the edits of A to Z stories of Life and Death, all without much success, because I keep going back to reading.

7. I’ve tried to go blog browsing, but for once find myself getting distracted From the internet. You guessed it. Books, again.

8. A friend asked me if I’ve been getting enough sleep. She’s right, I’m not. Yup, reading.

So, apologies all around if I haven’t visiting you guys often enough. It is so rare that I get this kind of focus (and time on my hands) to read, that I’m going all out. Every dictionary should have my pic under the word “crazy”, I know that, but folks, this is so much FUN!

See you on the other side (of my books), and in the meanwhile, Happy Blogging!

And for those who commented on my Angelfish post, here’s a slideshow of the parents with the babies. Unfortunately, none survived, but their short life kept my nose glued to the aquarium.

Angelfish Family!

Of Hand-Written Letters

Hand-written Letters

A few weeks ago, I attended a writing workshop, only this one involved letter writing! I blogged about it here, telling folks I would be interested in exchanging actual, hand-written letters with them.

Three people wanted to write to me, of whom one is undergoing a move, so might begin later.

Of the other two, one is a very old blog-friend, who I’ve remained in touch with since before this blog…nearly five years. He is an amazing writer, and I’m looking forward to his letters, which I’m sure would be chock-full of details of his home-town.

The other is from a lady I do not know at all, a recent blog-friend. I loved her passion for wanting to letter-write though, so I said yes. She is a writer too, because that is the only clause I put for my penpals, they must be writers by profession, aspiration, or practice… I would want those who write for a living, but those who write/blog/scribble for a hobby are also very welcome.

So I wrote to my newly-acquired penpals last weekend, created short writing challenges for them to complete before they open the envelope with my letter, and rambled ahead in my usual fashion when writing my letters.

It was fun. I got to play with pen and paper and glue and stamps, something I haven’t done in a while. I don’t know if they’ve written to me yet, but today I dropped them notes on the internet saying I’ve written to them.

Cheating, I know.

But I’m so eager to get this process going, actually have a correspondence, that I let myself cheat.

Writing those letters brought mixed emotions, I had not sent my hand-writing to strangers before, and having never had penpals in my childhood, stepping into this whole area as an adult scared me a little. My handwriting suddenly felt precious, too revealing. I was self-conscious when I wrote, which means I probably did not write well.

I did feel a little inspired though, and promptly wrote a letter to one of my characters, which I think would be fun to send to a penpal! As a writer, I have to forever find new ways to trick my Muse into appearing, and this was as good a method as any.

Now I  wait for my replies, or maybe, my correspondents have written to me in the meanwhile…which means my letterbox will have a real letter soon, meant  just for me, and not bills, flyers, offers  and writing contracts. I don’t mind the last, but just saying…

If any of you reading this post would like to jump into a (possibly creative) correspondence through hand-written letters, feel free to pop me an email, or leave a note in the comment here, and I’ll send you a mailing address.

I look forward to sharing writing prompts, pictures, vignettes, bits and pieces of fiction, and hope not to bore my penpals out of their respective skulls.

Write to me!