The weekend was part fun, part disappointing. After long, fruitless debates, the office team finally settled on going on a lunch retreat to The Great Kabab Factory. Good decision I must say. The galouti kebabs, fish kebabs, and malai jhinga (butter shrimp) are to die for!
On the way back home, I bought those silver antique anklets that Sho's been wanting to buy. I hope she wont read this before her birthday. Considering she wouldn't know this blog address, I'll put it down over here, nevertheless.
Saturday evening and Sunday noon, I tried to write and complete that 'short' story titled 'A Room to Himself', but just could not do it. Especially on Sunday afternoon, when each time I sat down to write, the doorbell rang! That stupid woman employed to keep the building clean kept coming to collect maintenance money, give the receipt, get signatures, and such silly things. By the time I got to writing the story, I realized I'd run out of ideas. After 1979 words, I realized the story had still not reached midway!
This is my problem with short stories. I just cant, for the life of me, write a short story. I've no problem going on and on with a novel, but a short story - even something as simple as this blog post - exasperates me. Abhishek and I have often discussed writing. He is a brilliant satire writer, and his Twilight Banter was pretty popular among the 'circles'. I always told him how I admired him for being able to:
1. Write shorts, with mostly nothing more than dialog
2. Make all of them satirical
There is this Unisun publishing house in Bangalore that is hosting a story writing competition. I plan to send an entry, and have a story or two in my head. Of these, at least one I have written already and posted on my blog (Which reminds me, I need to pull out that blog from the Internet). I only have to refine it a bit. Add some 'meat'. The other one, equally stunning I suppose, is still in my head, but not on paper (Or on a Word document for that matter). Same problem. The publishing house rules state that the story should not exceed 3500 words and my problem is I do not know how to write a stunning, thought provoking, story within 3500 words.
I cannot write abstract stories, like those blaft publications things. Nor can I write stuff with heavy philosophy. My stories are mostly simple narratives, with a conclusive...well...end. No ambiguities. On the whole, it may look like the story is simple to the point of being mundane. And no writer wants to be called 'mundane'! I wish I could write more complicated, thought provoking stuff. But then, that is not me. Sigh!
I need to learn this art of writing short stories. Since I plan to keep, for now, all the short stories related to Mumbai, I hope the forthcoming Mumbai trip will help me get a few ideas.
No comments:
Post a Comment