Random thoughts on blogging and aspiring writers

I had been blog-hopping today and as always, was feeling overwhelmed at the number of super good blogs I stumbled upon. Every blog was well maintained, every post well written, every idea conceived with clarity! And that brought me back to the ever-gnawing question of what I am doing with this blog. It is neither focused(on specific area) nor is it updated regularly. Still, why should I blog? Shouldn't I be abandoning it? That moment, one of my favorite quotes flashed in my mind.

The woods would be very silent if no birds sang except those that sang best.

On a similar note, I was pondering upon the world of possibilities blogosphere has opened up to aspiring writers. When I read books of an amateur(err, should I say aspiring?) writer, clearly, there is a huge scope for improvement in their work. And when I read a post by Ashok Rajagopalan, I couldn't agree more on how rewriting helps a lot! I wish I could share it with every aspiring writer looking for feedback. But I doubt that it might be mistaken as plain rude and since I don't have much authority on books-authoring-and-such-stuff other than reading and sharing my views in the blog, I share the post here :) Rewriting to make it louder and funnier

Felt dress up

As I have already mentioned in another post, an off topic post is better than an idle blog! So here is a felt dress up as a gift for a little girl. I had so much fun making it :)

Play station ;)

No, not that kind of a play station, LOL! I have been making a play kitchen with cardboard boxes and finally, I brought it to a logical end recently. Here it is :)

Love, That Shit!

Love, That Shit! by Chandru Bhojwani

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

When an old couple were asked how they managed to stay together for 65 years the woman replied, “We were born in a time, where if something was broke. You fixed it… not throw it away”. This piece of wisdom was making rounds in social networks sometime back and it had me pondering about it now and then. Love, that Shit by Chandru bhojwani is a light-hearted take on both fixing and throwing away as the case needs be. It is neither cliched nor preachy. It lets you step back a little and look at your relationships with renewed perspective and sense. Every chapter starts with a nice and apt quote followed by the author`s humorous and mature handling of the content. I really liked the way the author points out issues like high expectations and less tolerance. Another credit to the author is that he spoke for both gender without indulging in any over-hyped feministic theories.

Haveli

Haveli by Zeenat Mahal

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

It's always a pleasure to read a Indireads novella, the winning point being its quality. So far, I have read four and I never had a complaint about the characters, writing or the the story. The stories, being a novella, are just a slice but still you can get a hang of the whole picture. The characters aren't flat but have depth. The writing is undoubtedly above average, infact a few novellas make a distinct mark. I am now confident that Indireads is doing a sincere job handpicking deserving stories and author.

Talking about Haveli, its all that's mentioned above. The lead character Chandni comes across as a confident, egoistic women at the surface but she reveals her naive, dreamy little girl side to us, the readers. Orphaned at birth and brought up by her grandmother, she goes through a phase of illusioned love. The 'literary' conversations between Chandni and Taimur are interesting but would have become a overdose had it not been a Novella. Another aspect which of course did not bother me while reading but left me wondering later on was the story's setting. It's set in Pakistan in 1970s but that makes little difference to the story. Overall, another quality work from Indireads.

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