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Showing posts from 2019

NaNoWriMo!

So, in my last post, I talked about the fact that I was considering nanowrimo this November. And, I’m in for it!!! Yeah, this November is going to be awesome! Here’s a little background about the story I’ll be writing. Genre: Fantasy Title: Zivel and the Sixth Element. Author: Mahikaa (duh.) This story was the first one I ever thought of, but never wrote. Its initial idea came to me in April 2017 and it’s been in the works since then. I’ve got loads and loads of beginnings for this story, so many scrapped, a lot of back-ups, but till date, I haven’t plotted or finished its first draft… That makes it more important to be written as soon as possible right? Here’s a plot summary I uploaded on the Nanowrimo website a few days back. But fair warning, my story is currently in its plotting stages, so I’d say, at this moment, everything is subject to change. Here goes: A lot of the past hasn't been said. Does that mean it hasn't happened?

Thoughts On Taking Up Nanowrimo in 2019

Yes! Nanowrimo. Now, I realise that most of my blog audience probably has no clue what it means. If somebody does, it’s probably because I told them and they thought it was a crazy idea. But then again, what is it? Nanowrimo is short for National novel writing month. Every year, writers from all around the world participate and attempt to write 50,000 words in 30 days. It happens annually and spans the entire month of November. Yes! It’s possible, many people have done it and I want to do it too. Before you begin preparing a speech for me, advising me to study this year and reminding me that I’ve got another round of 80 mark exams in the end of November, read what follows. Yes, I know, tenth grade, I have to study, etcetera, and reminding me has got no point because I know. We're being hammered so that the message to study seriously is ingrained in our minds permanently.  I realise the importance of prioritising studying and I’ve been doing so. But,

On Where We Stand

Nope, this isn’t about where we stand in the society, as an individual, our position in the world, no, none of that. This is about where we stand as a species. About where the collective mankind stands in this world. And probably even beyond. Here’s one thing before we begin. When I say humanity, I am not referring to the humanly nature in us. Instead, I’m referring to the humankind as a whole. We currently stand in a position where we seem to have the world figured out. Not just that, we know and shape how it works by our actions. Humanity has been around for so long that we’ve even dated back to our origin. How the living came into existence, how it’s been so far, how the world works. What our needs are, what our potential is, what our challenges are. Where we stand in the world of the living, in the universe, explorations to the beyond. So many spheres, all conquered by mankind. All along in or journey to figure out the world so far, our minds and observat

The Maze Runner - Book Review

***** Spoiler Alert ***** Synopsis: If you ain’t scared, you ain’t human. When Thomas wakes up in the lift, the only thing he can remember is his name. He’s surrounded by strangers—boys whose memories are also gone. Outside the towering stone walls that surround the Glade is a limitless, ever-changing maze. It’s the only way out—and no one’s ever made it through alive. Everything is going to change. Then a girl arrives. The first girl ever. And the message she delivers is terrifying. Remember. Survive. Run. Spoiler Alert, once again, because if you plan on reading the books, you wouldn’t want the plot revealed. And, much of it won’t make much sense either. Rest is your call. I’m not sure if I’d call it a review but it’s a fair representation of the thoughts that popped up after I finished the book today. Okay, okay, okay, fast breathing. It’s the first (or maybe the second) page-turner book I’ve read and those are the thriller feels it gave me

On Writing

Okay, this is not a blog post teaching how to write or anything like that because let’s face it, writing is an art that can’t be taught, but yes, it can be learnt. Little funny isn’t it? Okay back to the topic. This is about what I’ve been writing. Summing up from the words I’ve written since April 2018, I have written approximately 50,000 words. Aaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!!!! 50,000 words is the average word count of a novel.  No I’m serious. Seriously serious. And, I have to tell this in detail. So here we go, about 8000 words for my novelette, about 1000 words on my mystery WIP (work in progress which I hopefully will finish one day – haven’t worked on it since last September but I love the theme so there’s a great possibility that I’m going to pick it again someday, then an exact 5506 words on a story I wrote last May but I’ve mostly given up on it – sorry, okay now it’s getting boring so I’m going to leave it right there. But a big oops, I just realis

On Getting To Know Me

Okay, so it’s been a while now since I’ve been in contact with a few of my old schoolmates. But before I go ahead and talk about it, here’s a little trip down the memory lane. In fourth grade, I changed my school and got a whole new lot of friends, eventually losing contact with the ones at my prior school. That’s it. That was the little trip. Now, it’s been what? Seven years? Eight, maybe? And since our classes happen to be same now, I’ve been seeing those formerly-familiar faces again regularly. And I do remember a few things from back then, in fact, there are many incidences, people, things about the school, how my classmates used to be – that I still remember. And those people remember me too. Only, they know me differently. Now that we sometimes happen to engage in brief conversations, I realize that those people knew a different version of me, the older version, the ‘third-grade-me’ person. And I remember myself quite differently. It is

On Learning New Languages

It’s an unexplainable desire, learning new languages. Why? I know this might not sound like a reason enough but I find that the ability to be able to speak a greater number of languages awesome. It’s not only because you sound smarter, yeah, that’s a huge point of consideration but also because it increases your knowledge in an important way. And I don’t know why but learning a new language has always sounded like brain games to me because it tests your memory and your observational skills. How observational skills? Well, there are a lot of words in different languages that are similar to the language we know, mostly English. So, it primarily depends on how good you’re at recognising the variation-ed word in the other language and also accept the fact that that’s how it’s said. But it’s also scary because at present there exist 6500 languages in the world. Whoopsie! Mastering a few is a huge task and then there’s thousands of them around this lonely planet of ours. A

On Publishing Day!

On 5th July last year, my first novelette ‘How To Identify A Time Traveller’ came out. Now, over the one whole year, I did learn a lot of things I wish I’d known before it came out. It’s common, you learn from experience right? For instance, as I followed other author’s statements about how the first draft of their books were different from their final copies, I realized the important role played by multiple revisions and editors. The story of my book was pretty raw and there weren’t any significant revisions to the plot which, I now think of, were very essential. Also, the publishing method chosen wasn’t the most preferred one but I won’t go into specifics because it might get boring then. By the way, here's what it looks like: Also, once you finish a story, there’s always a possibility of there being more to it. But it’s been one year two months since I wrote that story and sure there were many ideas I had on paper which didn’t make it

On A Freakingly Epic Book Sale

Imagine this, you walk into a book sale, see so many unfamiliar authors’ life’s works around, so many people around so many tables choosing the next books on their ‘to-read’ list, so many bored people who just came to accompany their bookish friends to a book sale – sitting in a corner when their friends abandoned them temporarily because they were lost in the book world, what do you do? I’d freak out. And that’s exactly what I did. So many books. I thought nobody read books these days instead binged on movies made on so-called ‘worthy’ books. I was wrong. And I was happy I was wrong. Only, more readers meant, even though those people had a hall full of tables on which books were kept, they couldn’t keep up with the pace while refilling – the books kept going that fast. And, I did forget to mention that it wasn’t an ordinary book sale having a few percent discount on select genres or authors, it was legit a ‘book hoarder’s sale.’ Honestly, I love the i

Book Review - Turtles All The Way Down

                                                                                                                                              A John Green Novel. ** Spoiler Alert, you've been warned. ** SYNOPSIS:  It all begins with a fugitive billionaire and the promise of a cash reward. Turtles All the Way Down is about lifelong friendship, the intimacy of an unexpected reunion, Star Wars fan fiction and tuatara. But at its heart is Aza Holmes, a young woman navigating daily existence within the ever-tightening spiral of her own thoughts.In his long-awaited return, John Green shares Aza's story with shattering, unflinching clarity. Here's what I thought about it: I think the thing about a John Green novel is that more than it gives you the story, It gives you the feels of the truth. The truth which would probably be too harsh to accept or the truth which is the absolutely correct interpretation of it that leaves you baffled. For those who didn’t

Thoughts On An Airplane

Its night time and I’m on an airplane and when I look down, all I can see are specks of illumination, a sign of life. If I were to exaggerate and speak, there is no square metre of land that is accessible to us and not owned by us.  By us, I mean humans. Individually we may or may not own a lot of land. But if you see it amongst us humans, we have huge portions of it. Like, huge. So large they can house millions, hold cities, metropolises. From above, the land looked so vast. And the vastness did not fail to fascinate me. It was as if an enchanting spell. So much that I'm yet to comprehend. I have to admit you get a better view from a height. Okay following this statement, it might go a little on the crazy side. By crazy I mean my hopelessly imaginative side. Flying over cities, like I said, I see specks of light. They look like stars in the night sky. Sure they don't twinkle. But there's spots of light in the dark. Just like we see in the sky. Apologies, bu

Helsinki. Finland.

I’d like to begin with apologizing. Three weeks of inactivity wasn’t really my plan of running a blog. But then, I saw that coming and it was sort of inevitable. Regardless, I apologize. Now, getting back to the topic. There’s this thrill to be in a foreign country. And, it’s beyond what adjectives can describe. At least for me. I don’t think I’ve found the appropriate adjective yet. So for starters, I’ll just compare how things are different from our country. Our first stop was  Helsinki which was just a small visit and here are a few differences: The population. Normally in India, most streets are thronging with people. Here, being the capital city of Finland, Helsinki had considerably less number of people to be seen around at once. The food. Well, no doubt people here eat bland stuff which we’re not used to. Our taste-buds are accustomed to the spices and flavours of India and coming here, food gets little weird. Kind of better and healthier though.

On The Erred Power Of Fiction

Is it a curse to be blessed with the power of making things exist? Or a cure? As the World Book Day is approaching, I’ve been giving a good amount of thought to how fiction affects us. For those of you who do not know, the World Book Day is on 23 rd of April. Fiction is defined as prose that describes imaginary events and people. We can also say that it is something that is invented or untrue. In other words, it is not real. Do you believe that?   I don’t. Fiction is realer to me than reality itself. People often consider fiction as an escape from reality. They forget it could be more than just an escape. I’ll tell you what fiction means to me. The stories we hear, see, read, they all manipulate our reality like a tale of its own. They change the way we see things. They bend our beliefs. And specifically for prose, open our mind to the endless possibilities. (I didn’t mention movies even though they’re fictional because in case of movies our visi

On Needs And Capabilities

It doesn’t happen frequently but recently I had this conversation with one of my former classmates on how every innovation is meant to fulfil a need, how everything we humans do is to make things easier or better for us, how every action of ours has a reason necessitating it. Like, for example, we ever thought of water conservation because a) our survival was dependent on it and b) there was a slight chance that we might run out of clean water. Why would we ever think of it if there was no threat to us, if we were never going to run out of it? This need necessitated action to be taken. It set our minds thinking about all the possibilities and how to overcome this problem. Now, here, it can definitely be counter questioned that if every action has a reason behind it, essentially necessitating it, then why do we strive to explore beyond the boundaries of human reach?  To say with an example, what was the need to venture space explorations and why did we, the residen

On This New Kind Of Vulnerability

We are strong in our own ways. Ways which we’re able to explain to ourselves, if not others. We know it and we recognise this strength within ourselves because when the need arises, we’re the ones who shall make use of it. But despite all this, we are vulnerable. But when? When we’re overcome with emotions like those of joy or fear, or both? Or when we’re exposed to things that we don’t know about? A world lying beyond our horizon? Beyond what we can think of? I’d say both. You ask why? Well first case scenario, when we’re overcome with emotions (any), we tend to not think before we act. Right? That way, our actions are determined by both the feeling and the level to which it has taken over us. Second case scenario, when we’re exposed to stuff we have no clue about, we are vulnerable because we don’t know how or what will it lead us to. We don’t know what the consequences might turn out to be. Now, until we master it, we will remain vulnerable because the wa

On The Meaning Of Wisdom

What is the meaning of the word 'Wisdom'? Recently my nine (almost ten) year old sister asked me what is the meaning of the word ‘wisdom’? It took me sometime to figure out what meaning of wisdom would make sense to a fourth-grader. I mean, I knew the meaning all right, but somehow found it a little difficult to explain. Google says, the word ‘wisdom’ means the quality of having experience, knowledge, and good judgement; the quality of being wise. And wise means having or showing experience, knowledge and good judgement. This was okay but somehow felt difficult for a child to understand. I tried to simplify it in my way. I told her that it is a kind of knowledge that one gains from experiences. I simplified it further by saying that you grow wiser with time and you gain wisdom towards a particular thing or happening which you experienced. A person cannot be called wise by his intelligence only. It requires experience to become wise. I also made sure to check

On The Occasion Of World Poetry Day

The thing I love about poems is that they mostly have hidden meanings between the lines. Things that only poets can see. Truths that only poets know. No decipherer can ever interpret the exact meaning of a poem. Not because he’s incapable, but only because poems are supposed to make actual sense to only those who write them. I haven’t read much poetry, in fact, you may say that I haven’t read any poetry at all if we’re talking about the famous poets. But poems really are extraordinary writings. They speak the language of truth. Spoken in such a deceiving manner that you don’t realize it at all, they might talk of feelings felt in the most realistic way possible. It isn’t laborious to sit down and read a poem, they’re that short. Rhyming in poems may sound like a thing for children’s poems but in reality, it piques everyone’s interest just as much. We often find ourselves relating to the things we read in poems. Some lines tend to cast such a spell on us that it’s difficult

On The Concept Of Random Capitalization (and standing out)

                                                                                      It’s unique. From what I know, it was introduced in John Green’s book, Paper towns in which the main protagonist, Margo Roth Spigelman believes in the concept of random capitalization. According to that, iT Is oKAy foR a sentTEnce tO Go LiKE this. Pretty cool right? It makes her stand out in the book because of her uncommon beliefs but how she justifies it seems just right. She thinks that the rules of capitalization are too unfair to the words in middle. Which is justified. Also, kind of extraordinary. Although, I must say, Microsoft Word wasn’t happy with my random capitalization, its red lines under the text. I believe that it is unique and actually good because what we’ve been doing is what has been done previously by others. And by simply following it, there’s not much that we’re doing to change things. I’ve seen some people do this and I feel it’s a way of standing ou

On The Annual Whirr Of Excitement

The annual whirr of excitement, as I just quoted it. In simple words, the excitement/fear/anxious feelings among all of us on entering our first board year, grade 10. There’s this whirr of excitement. It’s there every year, it’s there this time too. Although, I must say people are kind of reluctant and nobody was actually excited because as each year passed, the difficulty level, knowingly or unknowingly, shot up. But we were also keen on freeing ourselves from grade 9 so, I guess ultimately, it was inevitable. *Shrugs her shoulders* Every year we’re excited about new books, friends, hopefully more likeable and lenient teachers than last time, which makes up for most part of our worries before we begin our one year journey and we also hope that this one turns out to be better than the last one. Is this whirr going to last? Well, its annual actually, it comes, stays for some time and leaves. It lasts mostly for two to three weeks until the newness of everything sinks amongst