Daily (w)rite

Wordle for

Writing short stories is what I have wanted to do for quite some time. But it is a difficult genre to master, and I am not entirely persuaded it is the right genre for me and what I have to say. While the writing comes easy, I am not so sure it flows as well as some of my poems.

Here is a prose-poem kind of vignette I had done some time back. I call it “Hell Found Me” :

Hell found me. I knew it would, sooner or later, but did not know it would be quite so soon. I had become quite an artist down the years I spent here. But now I am caught.

It is here that I have to stay, chained for all time, in the middle of this mindless desert, acres of salt, and little else. The cracks left by the wind on this never-ending salty stretch are mirrored by the raw cracks on my feet. Someday the cracks on my bleached bones will mirror them. First the birds, and then of course, the sun, will have their turn. It is a long wait.

But today as I lie scorching, I am flesh and blood. I can feel the heat under my bare body and the pain from the many cuts made on it to attract vultures. For years I have traveled these lands where no man dare make his home, where there is no soil for a blade of grass. Only salt, white, grey or dirty, meets the eyes, no matter how many miles one walks.

This was my home. I was a wanderer and this entire spread belonged to me, for it was I who would guide the trader who risked his life walking into this wasteland of salt. In exchange for things that took my fancy, an amulet, a carved box, or a piece of embroidered cloth, I would offer to lead him to the best place, where the salt was pure, pristine, and so white it hurt the eye. I would guide him in and out in a day, he would not get lost in this salty desert. He would come once, twice, many times, and grow my hoard in the caves I stowed them in.

Unknown to him, it was not his possessions I was after, it was his flesh. Ah, human flesh! Salty as the air I breathe, smelling of salt as the water I drink, and warm, so warm. No animal flesh can compete, and I should know, I have tasted most I could catch. I have hunted in jungles, and I have hunted beside farms. Crippled at birth, I knew no mother and the only herd I was ever part of was a group of beggars by day and thugs by night. I have loved human blood since then, it quenched my thirst and killed the dull ache in my belly. Most nights I went hungry. There were rats to catch of course, but rats can be quick.

Besides, hunting men is far more rewarding. They are more intelligent. It needs great cunning. I earned the trust of many, and when I decided the time was ripe, my meal never knew what hit him. I hate struggles. I do not like wasting precious energy in this desert, and trust is the perfect weapon. I would always ask them, on what was to be their last trip, to bring me some good wine. I would, as always, be quiet; I do not know much of talk, and it does not amuse me. They would be merry, and drink more than I. Most of them died in their sleep, dreaming happy dreams, which ended with a quick, firm, blow to the head. It is as good a way to go as any.

But as with all good plans, mine had a flaw. News of my unseen hoard grew with each small merchant that gave me a trinket. Then, you came, the robber in the guise of a merchant. And when the robber met the hunter, the robber won. You are now a speck in the distance, carrying away all the trophies of my hunt. They do not mean much to me, and you are welcome. I am chained outside my cave, from where I can see all the bones I tore flesh from, and I am content.

As birds tear at mine, I shall think of the poison I smeared on all my treasure and how you will be writhing in agony soon. You know, I have begun to like my hell. The way I see it, it is just a few vultures having a good meal, and I do not grudge them that.

For some reason I have always wanted to turn this into a poem. Today I got an idea how. I was on Sharon Bakar’s blog when I saw this intriguing link to Wordles, a free software that lets you create word clouds of whatever text you choose to feed in.

This is the link to the Wordle I created from the text of the vignette here. (Click it to see a bigger image). I like the way all sorts of unlikely words join up in the Wordle: “chained, hunted birds”, “years drink”, “scorching treasure”, “walking pristine”….I know random poetry generators can give you much the same kind of unlikely word combinations, but I like to see the Wordle do it so visually.

I was doing my 1000 words of morning writing, when I stumbled on a very helpful Character Writing Idea. As a beginner at characterization, it helps to be able to describe the characters in deep detail, how they look and what they eat, how they talk and what they wear.

You can choose to write about a friend, an ex, yourself, a partner, a spouse or an acquaintance —-as the guinea pig. Since it will all be in your private journal, you will never need fear them seeing it, but it would give you the practice you need to describe the people you already know, so when it comes to an imaginary character, things would go smoother.

I made one up today, and it went like this: (I needed a character for one of the stories I am writing, and though the description will never itself go into the story, it helps me that I can see her when I write about what she is doing)

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Writing a 1000 words a day is no joke, and yesterday I wrote 2000. I was ecstatic, I was beyond happy.

I liked what I’d written after a long, long time.

When I started on my 1000 words today, I was stumbling, and finally ended up in the direction of 500. I realized torrential writing is not an everyday affair.

When I went to save it, I realized one more thing: I had not saved the 2000 words I wrote yesterday.

I have not done my 1000 words of the day, so tomorrow it is 2000 words. I was idly browsing around and stumbled upon this site.

Creepy, eh?

Now that I have creeped myself out, and have done my work for the day, it is time for bed.

I am now reading Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands, so maybe I will read myself to sleep, bodies floating in the darkness notwithstanding.

Singapore is a garden city, not much to see. It is a shopping haven, no more, no less.

But on mornings like this when I can see the sun kiss the ships on the bay, then shine on them bright and glaring, when the bay seems to have been painted by a meticulous artist who has captured the water stroke upon stroke with an untrammeled hand, when a white yacht makes it way across, leaving a streak of milk-white behind it on all that gleaming blue, it is bewitching to look at Singapore in all its glorious hues from my window.

Not through the open window, mind, or I can hear all the cars rushing to and fro on the highway to the airport. Closed, sound-proof, enormous windows are my favorite for a reason.

If I look up at the bright, bright sky, I can see airplanes coming in to land, they glint in the sun, bringing people into Singapore on another new day.

I love also the abundance of greenery, the park on the East coast, where I often go for walks.

But Singapore is not the country of my love.

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I went for the first session of my creative writing course yesterday. After much searching, my husband found the place for me, and the sweet soul that he is, dropped me inside and only left after making sure that the class was on.

The teacher is a bookstore owner who also runs a small publishing firm. I already knew most of the basic stuff we talked about yesterday, and the exercise we have for the 10 week, 20-hour course is common enough as well.

Write 1000 words a day.

I am sure this sounds familiar to all aspiring writers.

But the interesting part is that these 1000 words have to be deeply personal stuff, an exorcism of inner demons, a purging of whatever has been bothering us. Being intensely private, we are not required to show our writing to anyone, but the teacher tells us that if we are honest with ourselves and wake up early each morning to write a 1000 words, it would make a difference.

This is supposed to be useful in a few ways:

• We can use this later as a resource for our writing (somewhat like in method acting where you call up a particular emotion from your experience for the camera), when we have to write about an intense emotion in our characters.

• It is somehow going to unlock the doors, and unleash the writer within us.

• It is writing practice, a way to develop a habit of writing consistently everyday.

I am not sure how this will work, or if it will work at all, but I have decided to take this seriously. Even though I was late waking up today I did not get on with the day till I had finished the 1000 words.

Somehow, they were surprisingly easy, less than an hour and I was done.

I am not sure I can keep the discipline for 70 days, but there is certainly no harm in trying very, very hard. I am traveling early in the morning tomorrow, but of course I plan to wake up earlier than required and finish the 1000.

I am sure only I could have written such an unprovocative title: the art of being provocative does not come easily to me.

I read on a fellow-blogger’s post today that being provocative is a great way to win an audience: get a controversy going, encourage discussion, spark debates.

While I agree at one level, the rest of me does not.

I’d rather read delightful, delicious posts like this one: Wonka is my reality or like the one that made me smile so many times within the space of minutes: F is for Frustration and Fridge Freakouts

I’d rather write posts like this one: Writing about winter sunshine, peeling orange

Or like this one: Life, death, and finding immortality through writing

I can’t help it, I like savoring a post, I like to twirl my mind around the aftertaste it leaves. I like blogs that touch me, not rouse me.

So, I will leave debating to those who are better suited to it. For me, I love writing, and I love reading, and having an argument is essential for neither.

Having a huge audience is a different matter altogether. But if you are reading this, I do have some audience, don’t I now?

Enough said.

I have put Google Analytics on my writing blog, just to figure out what kind of keywords get the most visitors and the visitor count, because that one is on Blogger, and does not have the kind of extras that WordPress does.

And I discovered that Google Analytics also tells me things like how many visits I have had from which city!

I have visitors from Melbourne and Stockholm, from Milan and Paris, and these I am excited about, but they are somehow the expected.

What I am really intrigued to know is that someone from Ellicot city or West Rutland in the U.S., or Kirkintilloch in the U.K. has visited me. I have a visitor from Novi Beograd in Serbia and Montenegro, I have visitors from Bandar Seri Begawan in Brunei, and I am thinking, wow, what completely fascinating names! I don’t even know whether most of these are towns or cities, what they look like, and so on, and yet, here are these people who have stopped by.

I have always known that the internet has a degree of omnipresence, and that complete strangers from across the world visit my blogs, but somehow seeing the names of those cities and towns, the date when the visits came and so on makes it so very real!

As you can see from the links, I have looked up a few of the places on the internet. I now have a new pastime (when I am taking a break between the gazillion things I have to do): every time I get a visitor from a place I have never heard of before, I will look it up, and take it from there.

For example, Wikipedia tells me: Anthony Burgess’s Brunei novel Devil of a State is set in Bandar Seri Begawan. The construction of the Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddin Mosque is a major theme in the book. Maybe I will look up the book, next time I head to the Borders bookstore!

While at my writing desk I have often wondered about the sort of view writers have from their desks when they write.

It really makes me curious as read bloggers describing biting winters, flurries of snow, or walks by the bay, as to what it really looks like from where they write. Is there a television around, a pet or babies underfoot, or the post from an office cubicle, an airport, a (Bob, from Tokyo) hotel room ? Some of the bloggers (Cliff) offer an insight into where they work from, others talk about the feelings set off by their urban lives.

I love these tantalizing bits of information, and I find myself imagining the circumstances and surroundings from where a post was written. Someday, when I have the time to spare I am going to start off a photo blog just about this!

For now however, I’ll have to be content posting a picture of the view from my window as I write. This is from the gallery of photos I have talked about in my post Writing inspired by a Digital camera on my other blog.

I have been writing about Mind-mapping in my other blog, and how it exploits the associative nature of our brain. The brain works in images, in snapshots, which is then translated into language. When someone says “tree” to me, I get an image of a tree, not its wikipedia definition, that definition comes on recall, when needed.

The write-as-you-think journal works on the same concept. From a “tree”, I might begin to think of the green hill in front of my earlier home, which might make me think of how excited my husband was to locate our house on Google earth when Google first came up with it.

And that might make me think of how Google has changed my life, how I depend on it for information like have never done on anything and anyone else before. Which, in turn, may make me think of my Dad and how his encyclopaedic knowledge of almost everything around the sun makes his friends call him up when solving crossword puzzles!

Writing about crossword puzzles makes me think of Sudoku, and how I suck at it, and makes me think of searching for an easy Sudoku puzzle to do online. This is exactly how I get distracted on a bad day, when almost anything is enough to get me distracted from work.

On better days, a word like “tree” might make me think of the tree I am supposed to be researching on, which can provide access to poison in a particular time period, in a particular area. And this would set me off on Google searching poisons, or to an online library I am subscribed to. I would also possibly end up writing up bits and pieces of the story I am working on. Result at the end of the day: a few precious pages written, some background research done.

I seriously feel that while writing fiction, a write-as-you-think journal can be an interesting experiment. It can let you document how your mind works, and help you channelize it in directions you want it to go, and prevent it from going on fruitless quests.