The craft

So yes I had some more time despite everything to be done so I thought I would do some ranting about the writing craft.  Recently I have begun to dislike the word rant. Its like the time I started disliking "random." I mean everything other blog was called Random something. Even my old one. Anyway. Moving on.

So ever since the admission I haven't written a word. Almost like I am scared to. You know, what if I really cant write. Now that would be catastrophic. Or a worse word. Finally yesterday I attempted a story one that has been sitting in my head for a while. Usually I save the ideas in my phone or in a book. Mostly phone cos the ideas usually happen as dreams, during small naps. so I wake up in a panic and save it in the phone and usually I end up not being able to decipher what the hell I have saved. Once I had " Girl atheist bus explain"

I kept looking at it thinking, yes someone explain! Anyway so I started writing and I stumbled right into the first problem. Earlier I would just write at a manic pace. Not stopping till I am done. No regard for grammar and structure or what ever else is required. But now that I have been told all the above mentioned do not exist in the stories I am sitting and forming sentences and thus losing the thread of thought. So I wrote one paragraph and then sat re writing it forever. and then ....I had nothing. I do have one paragraph written in many ways though.

Which is not too bad really. I am very interested in all the ways you can re write something. It changes your story so much. I love my first few lines, they are quite brilliant. what- If I dont say good things about my lines, who will. :/

With me I can never think the story, I usually write with about 70% of the ending in mind and the rest just happens as I go with the flow. Which according to my future director is indeed the best way to go about it. So well at least I am doing something right. I cant think my story out- as in sit down and think this will happen and then this. and then.. It makes me itch- like cannot sit down in a place quietly kind of itch.

So here are two beginnings:

1. " She first knew something was wrong after about a month of being married/ having moved continents and struggling in a new apartment in the coldest, most bitter winter she had ever witnessed in her 34 years of being.

Before that, she only had inklings of something not being right. It wasn’t the same. One can quell nagging doubts in many ways if one uses repression as a form of survival. At the restaurant, a few days later, huddled in her coats which she refused to take off despite the heating she suddenly had to face her so-far ignored fears.  Once the meal was finished mostly in silence and awkward ‘will you pass the fork, I dropped mine” and her annoyance at the way he ate- so clumsy and the noise his silverware kept making, was finally done with and the bill was paid, 

She sat looking out, dreading the walk till the car, parked a few blocks away. She was brought back to reality with his words “I think this place is drugging our food”. She stared at him, uncomprehending. He dug the toothpick to a side tooth, maneuvering it to reach the hidden morsel of whatever was left behind. She wanted to look away but the inside of his mouth seemed –disgustingly- fascinating. He took the glass of water and sniffed it. “I am sure all these Indian restaurants do it, to make us come back again and again”… He looked at her waiting for some kind of agreement from her so that perhaps together they could uncover this drug mafia. 

She felt scared and sad and the break of a nervous giggle in her throat.  If he had said it even half jokingly she might have gone along with him. But his face- so new to begin with, the lines and crevices and the double chin-everything so unfamiliar and his tone. She registered nothing.”

2. “Her orientation to American culture was based mostly on two things: “Friends”, from which she and her friends had decided that she was a mix of Rachel who was a pretty thing but a pushover, and a bit of Monica: a cleanliness freak who was tardy at the same time. 

The second was the mushrooming of McDonalds and kfc’s throughout her city giving them all a shot at American inspired obesity. She was fascinated with both.

She envied her friend who was their resident phoebe- eccentric and wild with not a care in the world. There was nothing wild or sexy about herself. She deserved to be a Monica. Even her name, Mynah had nothing exotic about it. Mynah was a stupid bird which did nothing important. And what was with the random yellow on the beak!”

The first begins with her new life and the second starts you off with a small old history. Yeah I got nothing else. 

ps: Also notice all the fragments? I tried hard to get rid of them. They are just...stubborn.