The Writing Room

I am not a fan of talk shows, so I don’t purposely watch them or listen to them. But occasionally I catch snippets of the conversations. Recently, I overheard a conversation between a mother and the host of a talk show. The mother said that when her child was in primary school, he was obsessed with drawing. He once drew a picture of a celebrity whom he had never met, and the resemblance was uncanny. However, when it was time for him to do the primary school exit test, she badgered him to study and forget about drawing. She told him that there was no future in drawing (or something like that) and that he should focus on his lessons at school, which apparently could take him places where drawing couldn’t. He studied, went on to high school and probably beyond, (I missed that bit) and has never touched a pencil again. This child clearly had talent which could have been nurtured. His mother gave him one choice. He had to walk the academic path. She now regrets her actions. At the tim...

First published on LinkedIn. Here are four comments that well-wishers/naysayers make to writers which writers would prefer not to hear. 1. Stop wasting your time. The writer’s job is one of struggle. The first struggle that she has to overcome is her struggle with a blank page. There are many times when the writer knows what she wants to write. But no matter how hard she tries, the right words refuse to show themselves. This happens more times than the writer likes to admit. But, eventually, the words start writing themselves. Not the best words, the ones that capture exactly what she wants to say, but adequate words that capture the essence of the story she wishes to tell — words that will be pruned by her editor’s pen over and over and over again before she is comfortable with sharing her work with the world. Completing a writing project is one of the writer’s greatest achievements. So, she enjoys wasting time writing. She enjoys writing and believes John Lennon who is reputed to ...

  First published on LinkedIn "Write an essay of not less than 3000 words and not more than 5000 words. You may choose your topic." That was my instruction. No problem. Nothing to it. I can write. I write all kinds of stuff. I know what I want to write about. I have the evidence to support my stance. I can do it. That was my thinking. I got out my computer, opened a word processing programme, wrote my title and before I knew it, my first draft was underway. In one night, I completed my first draft, not quite 3000 words, but enough to build the rest of my essay. By the second night, I had completed writing and editing my essay. It was ready for the world of readers who like the stuff that I write. That was a dream, though.  I would love to be able to be that kind of a writer who gets an idea and immediately manages to capture it in all its complexity in writing. But alas, I am not that kind of a writer. I get many ideas, wonderful ideas, but either I don’t feel compelled to...

Are you using the COVID-19 outbreak and the subsequent pandemic as a writing prompt? If you aren't, you should. COVID-19 has impacted every aspect of life from which all kinds of stories can be written. A number of writers  in the past found inspiration during a pandemic to pen seminal works. I don’t know whether or not China is telling us the whole truth and nothing but the truth about what is happening there with the Novel Corona Virus. But what is true is that this virus is slowly seeping into the rest of the world and some of us will be infected and will end up fighting for our lives. Some of us will lose this fight and some of us will survive to fight another day. The actions of China in dealing with this virus tell us that the authorities there recognise the danger and are doing their best to contain it. The rest of the world is watching and fighting its own battles to contain the virus where it is present in their countries or to prevent it from entering their ...

How did you learn to write? Not the letters of the alphabet but a composition. Probably a composition about your pet, or the summer holiday, or your best friend, or your visit to some site... I am sure that you wrote one such composition. And you used one of the following guidelines that your teacher gave you. Structuring Writing 1 In primary school your teacher told you that you needed to have a beginning, a middle and an end, when you wrote your composition. That is, the first paragraph being an introduction, the second paragraph being about the thing that you were writing about and the third paragraph being your conclusion – a three paragraph structure.  When you went to high school, you upgraded from compositions to what your teachers called essays. This time, your teacher told you to write your essays having a beginning, middle and end. That is, an introduction, a middle with at least three paragraphs and a conclusion – the five paragraph struct...