Limerick Challenge Week 50: Goals

Limerick Challenge Week 50: Goals

All I want to write like others with an ease 

My mind goes blank as if to tease

Words keep dancing

I keep pouncing

To arrange them for a story to please

 

 

WRITING 101, dAY 1: I Write because

“Writing is my way of expressing – and thereby eliminating – all the various ways we can be wrong-headed.” – Zadie Smith

Why I write/ Why I joined Writing 101

I write because there is so much brewing inside my mind and I’m not able to bring it out.

I cannot express my views by talking so this is the only choice left for me.

Still I have to grasp the nuances of English writing. And what better place is there than this Writing 101 course?

Practice makes one better so I write to hone my writing skills.

Friends’ encouragement and their advices are definitely helping me to improve my writing and my vocabulary is expanding day by day.

I have found that once you write everything in writing, whether it’s about your problems, hurt. Anxiety, depression or about joyful moments of life, your mind becomes clear and light. You can read it with detachment and discover the cause behind everything and rectify. Well! It happens with me so I write everything whether I publish it or not. It works like a therapy for me.

I write to learn about many branches of literature and especially poetry.

I write because it gives me satisfaction and raises my self-esteem.

Writing is the best way to communicate, share views and interacts with the other bloggers and to get writing tips and skills as a bonus from them.

I write because I have a secret wish that may be someday I’ll learn enough to write a good poem or story. Who knows…may be…one day….

Image source -https://images.google.com

Writing 101- I write because…

“Why does one begin to write? Because she feels misunderstood, I guess. Because it never comes out clearly enough when she tries to speak. Because she wants to rephrase the world, to take it in and give it back again differently, so that everything is used and nothing is lost. Because it’s something to do to pass the time until she is old enough to experience the things she writes about.” – Nicole Krauss

I write because, well, frankly when I read other blogger’s post I find it very fascinating that how people write so easily. Ideas and expressions come so easily to them. It irks me  that why I’m not able to do that.

There is so much boiling inside me struggling to come out but words don’t come fluently or easily to me. Expressing me is a big problem with me. I’m not much into talking and I found that writing is better than talking.

Once you say something, words are out, no correcting them. They might hurt someone or the fear is always there that I’ll be misunderstood, because in writing you can always correct them.

Moreover writing is like a therapy, cleansing you. When you come out with thoughts simmering inside you, mind becomes light and happy.

You can always edit what is unnecessary to publish.

I always join Writing 101 or 201 course and leave in the midway. I feel guilty about that.

This time I’m determined to write every day, not bothering about whether it is a good piece or bad, knowing well that my friends will correct me, inspire me and encourage me.

 

Carol or Parole

Daily Prompt- Uncanned Laughter–  A misused word, a misremembered song lyric, a cream pie that just happened to be there: tell us about a time you (or someone else) said or did something unintentionally funny.

It’s an old, at least 53 years old faux pass but I still feel ashamed of it, an incorrect word I  used in my haste to show my knowledge.

It so happened 53 years ago my newlywed elder sister came to visit my mother and me with his Christian husband on Christmas eve afternoon. After chatting for some time they got up to go but my mother insisted they go after dinner.

My bro-in-law declined to say he has to go with friends at night for…

Before he could finish, to show how much I know of their culture as I had studied at missionary school, I chirped in

‘Mother let them go they have to go for PAROLE’

Full marks to my BIL, the real gentleman he is, very quietly without even smiling, he corrected ‘ carol, Indu, carol.’

With great difficulty, my sister suppressed her smile. I still feel embarrassed when I remember this.

Afterward, we all had a good laugh about that.

Writing 101, Day Nine: Changing Moccasins — Point of View

Writing 101, Day Nine: Changing Moccasins — Point of View

A man and a woman walk through the park together, holding hands. They pass an old woman sitting on a bench. The old woman is knitting a small, red sweater. The man begins to cry. Write this scene.

Today’s twist: write the scene from three different points of view: from the perspective of the man, then the woman, and finally the old woman.

The Man

Red was the color my two years younger brother loved. It suited him too. When he was five; mother started knitting a red sweater for him. In the evening she will come to the park sit on this particular bench with brother playing nearby and knit. But before she could finish he died in an accident. The agony mother went through was unbearable for me. Mother could not overcome her grief and died after five years.Today when I saw this old lady sitting on the same bench, knitting the red sweater, she reminded me of my mother and I could not stop crying.  My wife understanding my feeling squeezed my hand and we passed by.

The Woman

I knew the scene reminded him of his mother. When he was seven years old, one day he was cycling, his younger brother came running to him pleading to take him along on the bicycle. He collided with him and fell down; his head stuck the concrete road making him unconscious. He died after 48 hours. My husband always feels guilty and blames himself for the accident and his mother’s sufferings.

I said nothing just squeezed his hand and let the moment pass. I knew he will overcome his feelings and will be alright after sometime.

The old woman

I love this park, this particular bench; it’s very comfortable and love knitting while watching children playing all around me. When I saw this man looking at me then this red sweater and suddenly burst in crying, I understood that there are touchy memories attached to this. I was curious and wanted to ask him but checked myself in time lest I hurt him more. They passed by holding hands.

Writing 101, Day 2- Dream House.

Writing 101, Day Two: A Room with a View (Or Just a View)

We’re all drawn to certain places. If you had the power to get somewhere — anywhere — where would you go right now? For your twist, focus on building a setting description.

A place belongs forever to whoever claims it hardest, remembers it most obsessively, wrenches it from itself, shapes it, renders it, loves it so radically that he remakes it in his own image.

– Joan Didion

 

 

Always living in a crowded area, in small flats without a garden, the insufficient place for pets suffocates me. I know I cannot afford a spacious bungalow but there is no harm dreaming about a house of my choice.

How much I would love to have a cozy cottage with a red-tiled roof on the hilltop, surrounded by the trees, bubbling with the breeze, overlooking the village full of houses, people, fields green with crops, cows, sheep, goats grazing around.

My hilltop house will have a beautiful small garden and enough space for my dog, cat to play around.

Since childhood, I’m attracted to mountains and hills so the village has to be surrounded by hills and yes, there has to be a river which I can view from the window, first thing in the morning.

 

 

 

 

Writing 101, Day One: Unlock the Mind

Writing 101, Day One: Unlock the Mind– To get started, let’s loosen up. Let’s unlock the mind. Today, take twenty minutes to free write. And don’t think about what you’ll write. Just write.

 

You write because you have an idea in your mind that feels so genuine, so important, so true. And yet, by the time this idea passes through the different filters of your mind, and into your hand, and onto the page or computer screen — it becomes distorted, and it’s been diminished. The writing you end up with is an approximation, if you’re lucky, of whatever it was you really wanted to say.

– Author Khaled Hosseini, “How to Write,” the Atlantic

 

I am sitting in front of the computer , my fingers itching to press the keyboard and start writing but my mind says’ what new you will write? everyone has written about almost every topic and that too so beautifully, do you think you can write better than them?’

This happens daily and what do I do? I just move on to read other blogs, story challenges, or whatever is interesting there. Reading wonderful blogs gives me immense pleasure but at the same time, it makes me nervous. My self-esteem takes a dip. One more day passes without me even trying.

In fact, I procrastinate writing on one pretext or another, as I have more important tasks to complete or there is household work to be done.

Since childhood writing, even in my mother tongue was my minus point. It’s not that ideas were not there but to express them was very difficult for me. Essay writing was the most difficult job for me. I could never tell stories to my children. I made up for this by reading stories to them.

Then why I started writing a blog one may ask. Actually, it was my daughter who not only insisted to open a blog decorated it for me. She told me to write anything that comes to my mind. At first, I found it interesting. I tried my hand at many things, Haiku, short poems, and short stories but the was very exhausting for me so I ended up publishing photographs in photo challenges. It was easy. Now that is also becoming difficult as I am unable to go out and take new photographs.

I am always afraid that everyone will laugh at my writing. I have a very limited stock of vocabulary, my English is not up to the mark, all these thoughts make me nervous. Though there are my friends who always try to encourage me and  I am very much thankful to them.

Now I have joined ‘Writing 101, I hope this will help me to reach for my goal.

 

( Yey. I have written for 20 minutes whatever came to my mind.)

 

 

 

Poem- Dust in the wind

Daily Prompt- Dust in the Wind– Have you made your bucket list? Now’s the time — write about the things you want to do and see before you become dust in the wind.

 

The Things I Want To Do

 

Whatever I’m today 

Because of the choices I have made

By taking responsibilities

for the  decisions I took

By following the path I choose 

And do whatever I could

In given circumstances.

Still, some desires are there unfulfilled.

Though my age may not permit me,

I would like to climb the Himalayas

Travel around the world

 Dance on the clouds

 Go on a voyage

 Fly with the birds.

 But this is what I can still accomplish 

 Sing a lovely song of love and peace

 Write a poem on friendship, compassion, and compatibility

 Give a smile to everyone I meet

 Help someone living his/her dream

 I pray to God please help me to fulfill

 Whatever whimsy ideas come to my mind

 Before I become dust in the wind.

~Indira

 

 

 

Five Sentence Fiction – Whimsical

Five Sentence Fiction – Whimsical

Whimsy land

My husband brought me to this place ‘Whimsy land’  to have fun as I always complain of living a boring life. Here  I can dance with the clouds, fly with the butterflies, play with the dolphins, or whatever damned activities I can think of, and now I should be thankful to him for fulfilling my dreams.

 I have to live here alone for a few days as he has some urgent work to complete then he will come back and take me back.

 It is one month passed and he has not yet come back.

 The staff here said that it is a mental asylum where rich people leave their burdens and pay a good sum for that, and now I’m to live here forever.

 I’m not complaining as it’s better here as compared to his ‘all work and no fun’ gloomy house which was like a tomb. I’m having lots of fun with the inmates.

 

 

Five Sentence Fiction – Sunshine

Five Sentence Fiction – Sunshine

SUNSHINE

Father while getting ready for his office called her ‘ lazy bones get up there is all sunshine waiting for you to go for a walk and get some vitamin D for your bones.’

‘Just five minutes father’ she started singing loudly, ‘Give me some sunshine, Give me some rain, Give me another chance, I want to grow up once again, he laughed ‘ I know your five minutes, at least half an hour more you will be in bed begging sunshine and another chance to grow.’

He went to his office and exactly half an hour later someone from the father’s office was at our door. ‘ Your father is no more.’ he said.

No…! It’s impossible, how it can happen to me…he was just 52, I just 2o…..just five months back I had finished my exams and have come to live with my father, life changed totally but had to accept everything and move on.

Life is so unpredictable; sometimes there will be clouds, sometimes sunshine; why not make full use of sunshine when it is still there, why take everything and everyone for granted?