Tag: Blogging

Posted in Blogging, Writing Tips

Of Human Sacrifices and Other Cliché

Posted on by Shaily Agrawal

My daughter was memorising an application to Principal in Hindi today about reduction in school fee–something her school teacher had them copy from the board but did not explain. By the time she reached the part where she would eternally sacrifice her Principal (Aapki sada Aahuti karungi), I was in fits of laughter. 🤣🤣🤣

I assured her it would not be a pretty sight–a grown up school Principal being thrown into sacrificial fire 🔥 by a nine-year-old girl to save a pretty penny; and that it would suffice if she is eternally grateful 🙏(Aapki sada Aabhari rahungi).

Thankfully, she gave up her plans about roasting her Principal crisp, and decided to be grateful instead. Whew! I think I just saved a life!

It is a common problem with unsuccessful writing–using archaic words without understanding them first. In our job as Instructional Designer, we are taught to write so it would make sense to a 13-year-old, which means no obsolete words, no sentence longer than 10-15 words, no page to hold more than 8-10 lines (preferably 5-6 lines).

We write to be understood.

I am sure you will argue that some situations require archaic words, like royal scenes and fantasy. I would like to disagree because I have just read an amazing novel–Thief in the Castle–which used every day language with a bit of formality where royals were concerned and still managed to create a perfectly believable royal scenario.

However, if you feel your audience is well-read enough to know those words, I would suggest understanding the correct usage first–don’t be my nine-year-old.

It also includes understanding the difference between a Worcestershire sauce and a Barbeque sauce (Is there a difference?); and the difference between severe and sewer 🤣.

Remember, your audience is holding a smartphone. It takes 10 seconds to search a word and even less to write a scathing review and post it on Instagram, X and Facebook in a single click.

So, if you are really that smart, or faking to be, ensure you cross your T’s and dot your I’s well. Don’t resort to human sacrifice–it doesn’t look pretty on Instagram! 🤣🤣🤣

Posted in Blogging, Writing Tips

My struggle with writing Fantasy

Posted on by Shaily Agrawal

I like to call myself a story writer.

My style of writing stories is more intent on an individual’s perspective on the situation than the events themselves. Most of the times, the narrator is one of the main characters. I write about the narrator’s emotions and relationships as events unfold. Sometimes, there is no plot, just feelings…more like Poetry…

…which becomes my bane when writing Fantasy!

Fantasy requires building a different kind of world around us where I need to explain what things look like. But being inside a character’s head who is already part of the world, they can certainly not be surprised with the flying jellies and candy bars hanging from trees (Okay, that one could make a good story…). So, why would they even think or talk about it? It is like make an Indian talk about their visit to the streets of their town–it is their daily life; they ignore it.

Also, since my writing focuses on relationships, it is difficult to make a character think of both their world and their relationships at the same time.

Therein lies my biggest challenge.

In one of my recent Fantasy stories (The Ceremony), I was creating a society where the Queen held all the power over the King. She goes out fighting while he raised their only daughter to be the next Queen. The scene is about the day their daughter chooses her Consort that will allow the Princess to become the next Queen, pushing her father out of royal circle.

Expectations about relationships change in light of the society and, speaking from inside the characters head, I had to make it sound like facts of life and acceptable. All the facts that fit for a mother in a patriarchal society were fitting in here for the King.

I kept changing perspectives from third-person narrator to the King to the Princess to the Consort-wannbe because no one can know the whole story or what is going inside another person’s head. And the entire narrative changed with it based on his relationships with the world around him.

It was an experience learning how the same situation can feel so different to different people. And the story wasn’t long enough to justify multiple perspectives. So, I had to stop at one point and take a stand about who our narrator is. Considering it’s a Fantasy, I had to “stay in the character” and keep adding Fantasy references that would feel natural, though I did not go to Victorian language for creating dialogues (I was tempted to but it is beyond my skillset).

It was a struggle that kept me occupied for months.

What is your struggle when you write your pieces?

Posted in Random Thoughts

Is WordPress Mocking Me?

Posted on by Shaily Agrawal

Recently, WordPress has got into this obnoxious habit of praising everything I do. 🙌👏🥳🤘

It reminds me an over-enthusiastic new parent that goes “Awwwww” over their child 👶🚼 as it burps and says goo-goo-gaa-gaa. Take a look at this screenshot of the recent praises I have received and tell me if I wasn’t better left alone.

Lately, it has been sending me congratulatory card every single day (today is the eleventh day) on my “Activity Streak”.

Once upon a time, when I was may be three, I would have died for that kind of attention. But now, it makes me want to stop acting on WP for 24 hours just to stop this nonsense–like a teenager failing class just to show its parents. 👿

I’m sure the people at WP mean well. I just wish they meant less well. 🥴

Posted in Random Thoughts

Boom!

Posted on by Shaily Agrawal

I just noticed last night that I was getting around 3000 views per week.

It was surprising, considering that I hadn’t posted in a week and the most popular post was one I posted four years back about my first book. I let my heart soak the happiness that had been denied me so long. I knew I was being delusional, but everyone is allowed their own fantasies.

My last count in early May was 100 views per week, that too on a good week. On bad weeks, I slipped to…well, I would rather not discuss it. So, this latest update was like people googling Monika Lewinsky after the report of the Presidential slip. I wondered if I posted photos in a two-piece bikini.

Well, since I certainly did not post those pictures (yet), I am fairly sure it is AI stealing the information, hackers trying to look for loopholes or WordPress team trying to boost my confidence after a long fallow period.

I am not going to think too much about this bit of happiness–I would rather consider myself a small celebrity and post my picture on a Hawaiian beach complete with a flower garland and a PinaColada in my hand (AI-created, of course, considering none of my five books made me any richer).

I hope all of you are also enjoying equally happy delusions.

Cheers!

P.S.: In case you are wondering, you can find my free short-story collections here: Books by Shaily link

Posted in Blogging, Writing Tips

Rain Rain, Don’t Go Away

Posted on by Shaily Agrawal

I have always been interested in cultural reference in literature and how it shapes it, specially when I read someone explain Haikus that they have at least one line of “unrelated” reference to nature or seasons.

Why would a ninja (yes, ninjas often wrote Haikus) with super-high intelligence waste time in writing a piece with “unrelated” reference to nature? Doesn’t it sound weird before you even process this information? Could it be because the person writing the Haikus definition did not understand these references?

Is it because they have never really been close to the culture itself?

Seasons are related to survival of cultures that started long before irrigation techniques were invented. They are interwoven into poetry that started soon after, when people had time to ponder. Seasons bring comfort or discomfort and directly add to our joy and sorrow.

For example, in India with its oppressive heat most of the year, the smell of wet earth is considered one the most beautiful aromas. It brings out our joy. A lot Indian festivities are built around rainy season. It also brings out our loneliness when we don’t have anyone beloved to share it.

When a Hindi song explains feeling joy in raindrops, you might wonder how could we enjoy feeling chilled–that’s cultural gap.

I just found out that Indonesia has only two seasons: Rainy and Dry–they form the basis of their poetry.

There are also other cultural gaps, like when an Urdu writer spends pages and pages of his book writing pieces on his girl’s eyes, you wonder why he isn’t talking about her other body parts. Surely she has lips…nose…fingers…toes…legs and arms. May be because he never saw anything except her eyes because of the parda system.

Likewise, when an English writer writes about warm hearth and cozy houses, Indians have a problem in understanding how being warm could make you comfortable when we make it a point to open as many windows as possible. Most of us have never seen a fireplace in person, not even a proper oven. We also don’t have Autumn in most parts of India–we don’t understand it. We cannot visualise Autumn colours, falling leaves, gathering for the harsh winter and saving for a rainy day.

I recently saw a book, brilliant idea and amazing plot, where the writer tried to replicate Chinese culture. While the storytelling itself was amazing, there were parts that didn’t fit–some of the cultural references were wrong–minor misses that felt like a wood splinters stuck in skin. I couldn’t help thinking about them until enjoying the book became impossible.

So, the point is…

Actually, I don’t know what the point really is…

May be, this is just a reminder that not everyone will understand our stories unless we explain a few things better; and that if we are writing about another culture, we should get the cultural references right–even minor one. Also that if, as readers, we are missing context, it is good to research the culture or just ask the writer. 😀

What do you think of missed cultural reference?

Posted in Blogging

Quick notice

Posted on by Shaily Agrawal

I was trying to update my website recently and tried to update categories based on the type of post. Needless to say, I killed it. So, if you find prose in the Poetry tab and poetry in Fiction, please forgive me. It might take a few days to fix.

I also tried to get a new site theme but my inner child wanted the Scratchpad theme back. So, I reverted back to it after losing 3 hours of work.

I also want a new top picture and logo. I don’t think I will change it too. Probably, I will move around to something better looking and, after two days, return to same old. All I can say is that I am not sitting idle.

Let’s see how it goes.

Posted in Blogging

Gratitude Day!

Posted on by Shaily Agrawal

I just noticed that my blog now has 548 followers. I was overjoyed! 😃

I have been out so much in the past two years, sometimes due to life taking over, other times because of the books I was writing (and no one was reading 🤣)…

I feel like an ingrate for not noticing when it happened. I can only say that I was so lost 😵 in life that I missed it.

So, I want to say “Thank you!” ☺️

Over and over. ☺️

For staying with me while I wandered 🧳 mentally.

For not “unsubscribing” me, “un-liking” my posts and “uncommenting” your comments 💬 (not sure if it is possible but I don’t want to risking it in case you actually considered the option 🤣).

I will try to be more regular–it makes me super happy to write ✍️. I am just taking a lot longer–the perfectionist in me doesn’t let me post until I am satisfied and since I never have enough time write AND read, I am never satisfied… Moving on, I hope to write regularly, which will help me flex my mental muscles 💪 and help me write faster as I was doing earlier.

Thank you again for subscribing and staying with me! 🥰

Posted in Blogging

It isn’t what it looks like!

Posted on by Shaily Agrawal

Once again, I missed her.

My siren.

There she was singing to me about new stories,

Sitting right beside me,

While I plodded on with office work,

Waiting for it to be over,

So I could write down what she was telling me.

Now I sit with smartphone in hand,

Clueless of what

I was sure to have memorized.

My siren is long gone,

Disappointed at being ignored,

Suspecting of my love.

This is what happens when

You spend too much time with Work.

I hope she knows it isn’t what it looks like!

Posted in Random Thoughts

The power words wield

Posted on by Shaily Agrawal

Recently, I was listening to piece of poetry by a Hindi poet. It was about a small yet important incident in Ramayana–a revered Hindu epic. It is a tale of love and resilience about four stepbrothers. I have read and heard it so many times by so many writers that I was sure there isn’t anything left to move me anymore. I was wrong.

By the end of this piece, I was shaking with righteous indignation and extreme pain of both Bharat and his mother.

The piece that I heard was a short one where Bharat, having just returned from his maternal grandfather’s kingdom with his youngest stepbrother Shatrughan, realizes his mother has schemed to exile his stepbrother Ram (and Laxman who went with him), so that Bharat could ascend the throne. He confronts her.

The mother welcomes him home with joy, telling him to carry out last rites for his father and ascend the throne.

The son starts with a wave of angry words while his mother truly believes she can ride it out. He calls her sinner and murderer for killing their father (who died of a broken heart after exiling his beloved son, Ram).

You can feel the crescendo rising as he calls her a conspirator against the family for killing its roots and a traitor to the country for leaving the kingdom without the king, for he would never ascend the throne.

He blames her for bringing him public disrepute and unlimited pain by separating him from Ram. He wishes aloud that she should have killed him the day he was born. His anger is palpable as he declares he would kill her at that very moment…

…but, then, he breaks down. He can’t kill her because Ram would, then, disown him because Ram loves his stepmother Kekai more than his own. Bharat is blinded with rage and his helplessness at his inability to set things right. He storms out of the castle vowing to never return.

The poet has so far concentrated on Bharat’s righteous anger, but then, he moves to Kekai’s realisation and remorse.

The moment Bharat steps away, Kekai breaks down.

In poet’s words, “Santati ki khatir jo pahado se bhi bhid jati hai, par jab beta thukra de, us pal maa mar jati hai. (She can move mountains for her child but when the son leaves her, the mother dies.)”

She was once a warrior of fame who had faced huge armies and fought with bare hands. But in this moment, she is just a new widow who lost all four sons in a single moment of insanity. She shatters to pieces in front of all. She is calling out after Bharat, crying on the floor in front of the world–all ambition forgotten and regal demeanor lost–pulling at her hair at the realization of what she had done.

While coming from me, it is sounding like a narrative, but the poet has created a scene so intense, you can feel your blood boiling and insides shaking, and you feel her pain, her shame, her angst and her helplessness. Tears trickle the sides of your eyes…

That is the power words wield…

That is the power I wish I could have…

Posted in Random Thoughts

Choosing one good thing out of three

Posted on by Shaily Agrawal

I was recently writing a science fiction short story. By recently, I mean that I have been writing it for an year and it is still not finished. The reason it is not finished is that I have three probable ends and I am not able to decide one.

The story has been created out of a dream. It was a surreal dream and I wanted to use it. But as I progressed, this one developed into something totally different and I am unable to decide where to take it in the end. Does the heroine get her hero? Was he really the hero? Did he really exist and on what level did he exist?

So many paths to take,

so many turns await…

I take a step to where my heart moves me…

but my heart moves at a fast pace…

How do you decide what life to live today?

Author’s note: I feel in my bones that whichever end I choose I will never be satisfied. I think I am in too deep. I am living this story in my mind!