I try and write 20 minutes a day every day. I also keep a weekly quota of 3.5 hours of writing. Mind you, I am not a full-time writer. I don’t have an agent and I am not being commissioned every week for something or the other.Everything I write is new and creative. I work and rework the picture books I have created. I edit, revise, re-write. I paginate, I do dummies, I re-write.
I also have a notebook full of ideas – so I dip into them and every time I write, I unconsciously write in the 32-page book format. Some fit, some don’t fit. I try and fit the ones that don’t fit the first time. And if it works, I continue on it as a picture book. If not, I try and make it a chapter book.
Either way, everything I write is for fun. I do send them out at some point, when my first reader and has seen it and commented. I rewrite over and over again and then submit to my critique group. Then I rewrite again. Sometimes it changes the story, sometimes it just changes the words. Either way, every rewrite is valuable.
One such writing episode was the story of a boy in a village in India. I wanted to call him Ramu. My father is called Ramu at home. I wanted my father to be part of my books, in some way. He has always been proud of whatever I wrote. He had celebrated my victories with prayers to the Almighty and blessings to me.
And then I had this particular publisher in mind. They gave me a brief a year ago on what kind of books interest them.
The final piece of the jigsaw was an idea that has been in my mind for many years now. I have tried to write it many times, with no success.
2 Comments on Why do I write?, last added: 4/10/2012
Lovely to read this, Chitra. Congratulations!
Congratulations! Very inspiring story.