it’s finally out of my hands now. my proposal for the creative writing phd.

submitted it yesterday and now i have at least two months before i know the result. in or out, the novel-writing process, which began as an also-needed part of the phd proposal, has started too, and looks like it will continue regardless of whether or not i get registered. i don’t know how or when it is going to end. and whether it will be a good book, or thrash. but i had a story to tell, and so i have begun. and now i too belong to the thousands of aspiring writers struggling with a first book.

i should be worried. but actually, i think i’m quite excited!

it is a different world altogether. this business of writing-a-novel. a world of multiple uncertainties.

i beg, borrow, fight, throw tantrums, anything for some time to write. and when i do have that time, i stare at a blank screen, willing the words to come as if by magic.

my problem, at least for now, are the characters. how many should i have? how do i think like another person when i am me? will the reader be able to guess, what part of a character is me, or – if it’s unfortunately someone i know – he or she?! last week i thought of a bad character. bad as in, the anti-hero types. and i think i was so engrossed in creating this personality (have written all of 80 words about him, and that is the truth!), that for the past three-four nights i have been having nightmares! one of them included a laaaarge giant-size black cockroach with HUGE antennae climbing out of athri’s milk-powder dabba!! i woke up screaming, intensely relieved to hear praveen snoring away and athri breathing softly by my side. i still haven’t touched that can of milk powder…athri can have all the cows’ milk he wants! i shudder to imagine what the science fiction writers must be going through. i am not even going to think about stephen king. maybe he’s not human.

sigh. there are millions of books out there…how in the world does a writer finish a book!? and then go ahead to write another brilliant one! i will never have all the answers. and i think of all this, and then i end up not-writing a word. but yes, this is what i have chosen. hopefully someday i will finish the book (fingers crossed!) and link back to this post…

while we are on this topic, i must urge all of you (especially those who enjoy good writing) to check out the guardian’s new how to write series, if you haven’t already. i have read a lot of how-to-write tutorials, but for the first time, i found these nuggets of information to be gems. to the point, brief and in a language quite extremely-friendly (lola-speak…yes, too much cbeebies).

———————

i was also happy (and pleasantly surprised) to receive the Brilliant Weblog award. thank you bluespriite (love the painting on your about-page). this is what she says about my blog:

She doesn’t write as often but I wish she did.. I don’t think I have interacted with her much, offline. She has little touches on her blog that make me wants to go back and reread old posts.

thanks again bluespriite 🙂

and now, as is the tradition, i am tagging seven others…most of them are from praveen’s livejournal friends’ page, who i enjoy reading whenever i sneak up on them. the first is my good friend and ex-classmate bridget atkinson, who as i type this, is walking the camino from lepuy in france to santiago de compostela in northern spain. this award is for your decision to walk the pilgrimage bridget, and here’s to good health and a safe journey home.

to my sister deepika. deeya for livejournal. dapdishoo for me. for being herself. for her faith. for trying. for writing.

to little anirud. although he may not fully understand it himself right now, his father‘s been maintaining a journal of his activities. i always wanted to keep a journal for athri too, but it takes more than just wishing to get something done. and this is for chakra, who has that discipline. chakra also has an excellent microsite for people coming to the uk. yes, now you know the kind of discipline he has.

for charu. fellow-fibromyalgia-sufferer. for her writing. for her photographs. for her will power.

for neha. for being so brilliantly honest and truthful about everything she writes. she also makes me laugh. and i love her poems.

last but not the least, for praveen. my pillar of support. my punching bag. my husband. there, you have this award. happy? go and bring our booda back.