Petals!

For years, as a writer, I have been lost in a jungle of my own making – thoughts that juggled a hundred ideas but took me nowhere, among other things.  In January 2014, I told myself firmly, “That won’t do. You will sit down and write.” The moment I became firm, I began to write. Not at the pace that I want to. Still, I can honestly say that a majority of the stumbling blocks have been overcome. Then I read this thought provoking post by Jane Friedman who argues that one must answer this question to grow as a writer: “Do you know what you want from your writing?” Jane Friedman cites broad and general examples that enthusiastic writers tend to cite. “Fame,” “Livelihood” and “I want to be heard” are among them. I began to feel dejected. These are not my reasons. Does that make a non-serious writer? Maybe I should just write instead of getting into a philosophical rut about why I want to write in the first place. But let me not jump the gun. We are talking about THE ...

“Craft” is a word that reminds me of St Andrews School in Malawi, where we had art and craft classes. I can't remember enjoying those classes much because i had no eye for detail when it came to dealing with ribbons, glue, fabrics and things like that. My sister used to be great at it. I still treasure the flowers she used to make from fabric. She used to knit, sew and make paintings with an artist's eye for things. It's amazing how different siblings can be. However, her love for crafts stayed at a hobby level. Some one in my team asked me today what I would define 'writing style' as and to be honest, I felt stumped. I was reminded of the wise words of Dr. Joseph Schlessinger, chairman of the Department of Pharmacology at Yale's School of Medicine and the founder of three biotechnology companies in the US who stated "....... it's very hard to manage science when you have huge teams of people." When it comes writing style, I know what it is but whe...