Sharmishtha’s
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(group member since Sep 26, 2016)
Sharmishtha’s
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from the Sharmishtha Basu's Indie Adda group.
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Festive season is finally here, a full month of fun and revelries, do not forget to protect yourself and others!Wish you all a very blessed festive time ahead!
Self-editing tips 2https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/self-e...
First step should be finishing the draft. I usually finish the entire story before starting my editing. I prefer it that way, I can always change it, rewrite it, that is no problem for me. You can do whichever you prefer. Before you start editing you should be clear about your own preferences.
Do you like to play with words? Put in hard to understand words like so many authors do? One of legendary Bengali poet Michael Madhusudan Dutta used to have a group of scholars with him when he wrote his works, he used to ask them for synonyms of words and then pick up the one he liked most. Writing can be made beautiful and interesting using both techniques, simple and complex words. If you want to be playful, you should sit with dictionary or phone to select the words you want to replace with playful words and then assess which one is better.
My style is I try to make my works as easy to understand as possible without the help of dictionary. When I first started reading English and Bengali books I had to refer to dictionary every alternate line, like we all have to do I believe, so these days if I have to look into dictionary to understand a word it bores me to death! Especially if I am reading a story, article, in case of poetry it can be ignored because they are smaller in size and poets sure love to play with words.
So do you or do you not want to be easily understood? If yes then go for simple language and be grammatically perfect, if not grab your phone or dictionary and play with words, but be grammatically perfect.
Once you have finished the story/poem/essay you can always tinker with the words, sentences and replace them with complex or intriguing or playful ones. No one will be stopping you from doing that!
There are so many things you can add when you are editing your work-
• A little drama
• A sudden twist
• Exquisite words
• playfulness
Once you have a finished work in your hand chiseling it becomes easier and foolproof, you know your work, its start, finish and content, now you can alter it as per your own wish.
In the end I believe the writer should write for readers but s/he should write for self too. If your own work does not make you feel smug and content then you are missing something I believe. You should be able to say to yourself yes, I really wrote a good piece! It is now up to the readers to like it or reject it!
Part 1 is here:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/self-e...
Well,September just whizzed past, it feels like it was August just yesterday and now it is almost October!
Wish you all a very blessed October
Love.
Self editing tips 1https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/self-e...
Self-editing is a really tough game but I prefer editing my works myself, my friend and author Troy David Loy [https://www.amazon.com/author/troyloy] has edited quite a few of my works but then I fell back to self-editing again, he is a great editor but self-editing gives one more freedom plus there is the connection with author too! Then when you are editing your work you can ruthlessly change it, if you wish like it you can completely rewrite it, something someone else won’t do I feel.
Some steps that may be useful to you too if you self-edit your own work- these are the things I do.
Finish the story, edit it for the first time, look for typo, grammar, line-break, words and other things, believe me MSWord slips many mistakes, one too many for my liking, it can make your face turn into a beet-root if you don’t edit your work and publish them like I used to in my earliest stage, I used to type online and hit publish to blush later.
Don’t stop with the first edit, keep it away for a while after editing it for the first time and toy with it you can, then sit with it again and go for a serious edit, in this phase you may rewrite pieces of the story or sometimes just rewrite the whole story, you can keep the draft, I always do, till I pick up the one I like best. I keep them in one folder and then simply name them as first edit, second edit…. to final piece.
Once you have edited the work read it a couple of times and see how it makes you feel, will you love to read that story again and again? Because if you won’t like to read your own work multiple time then you should ask a friend to read it and share his/her views, but one tip, even if you share it with a close friend copyright it first then share. It is always wise to copyright your works before you share it with a pair of second eyes.
If yes then hit the publish button.
Hope things are nice at your end, they are quite normal at mine, time is passing just the way it was last year, or the year before.Busy and quite satisfying.
take care and stay safe,
Writer’s block 2https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/writer...
Some of my habits may explain why I never suffer from writer’s block. Maybe they will help you too.
First, I never bite more than I can chew. Writing is not a challenge for me. It is more of a fun to me than anything else. I love to write about things I can grasp in my brain and play with.
Two, wherever I am [inside home I mean] I have always access to a pen and notebook/diary. Because there are times when you can’t open your computer, phone and jot down a few lines that popped up in your head, but you can always grab a pen and jot them down.
Three, I have always been a dreamer, ever since my earliest days I remember, back when I had no plans of becoming a writer or anything of this type, I read a book and went on my own journey on the wings of that book, same thing applied about movies and music. So, these days my brain is always churning with ideas of next piece. So much that I end up losing them.
Four, imagine, when you are watching a painting feel it, get inside it and then I am sure you too will pen down a poem or write down a short story! This is one of my favorite games. I just browse through photos, paintings and allow them to stimulate me. Those who say a picture says a lot are absolutely true! They always speak to me!
Five, let them get you- what bewitches you- the world of common man, ghosts, aliens or nature? Whatever it is play with it and write about it. Let it captivate you and make you write. Say, suppose you love to write about average men, people of everyday life, read about them in newspapers or blogs, and then turn them into your characters!
Hope one or more of these ideas will help you like they always do me!
Just to remind you, I am always ready to share your book announcements, blurbs, your other creative stuffs in my blogs, ezines. So if you have one feel free to send it to me.if you have a book you want to get reviewed for free and your reviews being posted in goodreads, my ezines and blogs- feel free to send me the pdf file in my email id= sermistabasu@gmail.com
See you again in september!
Wish you all had a happy August, mine was normal because my life is not really affected by covid19's lockdown. It is as normal as it has been. So for those whose lives have been affected mildly, keep the spirit up!for those whose lives have been badly affected, I can feel your pain! This too will pass! Hope things will be good again then!
Take care and stay safe.
I wonder if this poem will open outside linkedin still worth the try.
https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/...
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/beat-w...I guess I never suffered from author’s block because I am an extremely late bloomer when it comes to writing. I have started writing in 2007-08, before that I never wrote anything outside my school, college and other such notes.
So my mind is always bubbling with ideas, and I very often end up forgetting them because they show up at the most inconvenient moments. But when I try to make myself create something a few things work wonder for me, wonder if they will stimulate you too!
1. Watching movies, they very often stimulate my creativity, and most of them are not spinoff of the movies, very often they take their own absolutely different track.
2. Checking out photos, beautiful ones especially, they work magic for poetry specially.
3. Prompts help too, if I seriously want to write stories and can’t get any interesting ideas the prompts available in internet very often help. All prompts don’t impress me but enough do.
4. Editing my own works often give me ideas for new works. I edit my own works so when I feel the urge of writing but can’t find anything worth trying I edit, and while editing new ideas quite often pop up.
5. Being a resident of tinsel town I can’t take a walk in nature or spend time in company of forests, ocean or hills to stimulate me, I try to compensate with YouTube once in a while, not regularly though, but sometimes watching beautiful videos in YouTube helps. Stimulates the muse quite a lot.
What stimulates you out of writer’s block?
Well, June is officially over, July is about to start. Hope this month will be better than past few months! hope and pray!take care of yourself and stay safe.
If you want any of your books to be reviewed dont be shy drop me a line here, I will contact.
If you want to review any of my books for free [you will get the pdf file of course] drop a line!
love
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/writer...Suffering from writer’s block has never been my problem, my mind is always bubbling with ideas and honestly I have too much in my plate to enjoy the luxury of having too much time in hand to give my muse. Usually I end up forgetting things that I was about to write. Sometimes permanently!
If you are suffering from writer’s block you may try these tricks, I try them when I try to discipline my muse by writing a little every day, not writing whole month’s quota in a week!
1. Do things that stimulate your muse! In my case it is reading, when I read about things, that can be anything- a travel blog, description of a planet, a creature, anything at all, my brain often spins off a story. Like some of my stories of Urania’s table popped up in my mind when I was watching a national geography video on other planets of our solar system, their beautiful description.
2. Music works wonder for me in case of poetry, especially the ones with video, quite a few of my poems have been written by watching songs, music and video. The videos on nature do the same magic when I am writing poetry.
3. Read about places, phases- they often give idea to great pieces. Historical places stimulate my brain a lot! You must have a trigger of your own!
4. Dream with open eyes! Yes, dream, let your muse write a story or poem for you, then you can brush it up!
That will be it for today, hope some will help you!
Take care and stay safe!
https://www.linkedin.com/in/authorsha...
Hope you all are doing good! Those going out are taking care of their safety as much as possible!take care and stay safe!
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/migran...I believe as an author it is my duty to give those a voice who can't speak for themselves. Recently brutal killing of an African origin man in USA sparked world-wide outrage. Many Indians were involved in that just outrage, I will humbly like to draw their attention to the thing closer to them. The condition of migrant labourers in India after the lock-down began.
Thousands of men and women below poverty level living away from their homeland lost their jobs at a four hour notice. That will be the bread on their table and the roof on their heads!
I am not a Government administrator but my common sense says these things should have been taken in notice before announcing the lockdown and these people should have been sent to their home first then the lockdown should have been announced. But it did not happened.
They should have been offered free shelter and food in that case, so that they don't get infected or starve. Honestly I really don't count very much on the food and shelter provided by Governments, have read too many dark stories. So I will again say that the previous step should have been taken, they should have been sent home first, before lockdown. After all there is no mathematical calculation in that, if they lose their job for indefinite period they will naturally prefer going back to their homeland, hometown where they will manage better!
In place of that began a nightmare, thousands of hapless men and women, starving, scared started walking towards their homes from wherever they were, because there were no trains or buses available! No one was there to help them, not the governments, not the police, only locals helped these people with whatever limited means they could! When they started dying a limited freelance journalists started protesting and the Governments had to take action, what did they do? At first they asked for fare, then they had to back off and they crammed these people in trains and sent them to their destination, and the travelers claim there was no water or food on those trains! They were stuffed with people. These people pulled the chains and got down wherever they desired to unleash a chaos.
When they reached their destinations misfortune followed them there too, some were beaten up by police because they protested against the food they were being given, one got bitten by snake and died because he was forced to live in a dilapidated building and many more heart-breaking things happened to these mute people, who cant speak because they don't know how to!
The question now is these people have reached their destinations and are now spreading the disease they have been infected with because of apathy of the governments since the lock-down. Who will take the responsibility of that?
The next question is what is being done to take care of their financial needs? I wonder if I will see some good news about these people in newspapers soon, that they are getting jobs from governments or as Abhijit Banerjee suggested government is sending them cash!
Please share your views!
Most of my information was gathered from newspapers and some freelance journalist channels, you may check them out and if you are like me, who love true journalism you may subscribe. I searched them by name in YouTube.
Vinod Dua
Ajit Anjum
Prime time with Raveesh Kumar
Bhakt bannerjee or Akash Banerjee
Abhisar Sharma
Dhruv Rathee
News laundry
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/lesson...Well, this attack from nowhere forced us human beings to pause and think for a long, long time, did not it? It simply grabbed us and stuffed us indoors for months! It is going nowhere but it has certainly made us wiser! Few things that this sudden outbreak taught me-
1. Human beings still reach out for others, in India the migrant laborers have suffered grievously because of government apathy, but local people helped them as they walked from their work cities to their homes!
2. Majority of people are still unprepared for a contagious disease, down here people are really not understanding how contagious the disease is, and are simply flunking minimum instructions that doctors and other experts are saying again and again.
3. Indian Government is absolute failure at crisis management, they simply did not even think about the condition of the migrant laborers before indirectly terminating their jobs in a four hour notice to prevent the spread of virus. [Before that they brought home infected people from all over the world by the way, to help the virus spread.] They might have first sent these migrant laborers to their respective states and then announce the lock-down. Four hour leash for a national lock-down is an insanely short leash.
4. No matter how much problem we have we certainly are far luckier than too many! We should be grateful for that and try to help others as much as we can, if not anything else then by not spreading the virus!
5. Our staying indoors with all our equipment is really good for mother nature's health!
6. If anything like this happens again I will pile up hand-washes! I am sure many have done that, that is why that thing has disappeared from the market! My brother was talking about cigarettes though! That is another thing that has simply vanished from Kolkata since March end.
7. Being a recluse who lives in home and is quite at home with that can become a real blessing! Introverts are absolutely not much bothered by lock-down! We dont have a social life or family, dont go out of home unless it is emergency so what lock-down blues are you talking about?
You want to say something?
Hope and pray all is well there, I am still trying to visit goodreads more regularly, if luck permits I will be able to spend a little more time here before 2020 ends! ha! :(Things are absolutely alright in my personal sphere, hope and pray same is at your end too! But things are not at all fine in the world outside and I have laid down my optimism for once, I know things will pass but not before harming many! So let us just hope it will pass with harming the least of the least!
Do keep yourself safe from the virus, dont underestimate it!
love.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/what-h...I grew up in a home where books were not at all rare, my father had monthly subscription for dozens of books, like National Geographic, Timelife, Reader's digest and books in my mother tongue for kids. Apart from these his library was always getting stocked with more and more English and Bengali books and I grew up a bookaholic. I dont remember spending one day without reading barring Saraswatipuja-on that day we Hindus worship the Goddess of knowledge and art and for some funny reason we are barred from reading anything on that day. Well, I have long ditched that tradition because reading is my daily diet. I have read something, even though I am always writing or painting, if not anything then newspapers! I rather prefer blogs though!
My ancestral home was the same story, they had racks full of books that were sadly almost destroyed by the time I reached them, the house was a termite magnet and those books have been rotting in a locked house for five years, then for the next five years the house was open but the residents were not interested in reviving them. Life kept them on their toes I think. Then I showed up in the scene and tried salvaging as many as I could, I wish I had done better, because those were magazines ranging from somewhere around 1875 to 1970s.
My elder brother had his own choice of books and he filled up his bedside rack with them, there were hundreds of them.
I too have bought hundreds of books till joining my first job, after that life went insane and as we had to leave our ancestral home behind we could no longer carry books with us. Kolkata rented houses are book-killers! Even now I dream of buying a house and dedicating one room to books.
What happened to people like us in India, especially Bengal? When I visit anyone's home I rarely see books lying around or kept anywhere, honestly! If I do, they are mostly bought by the previous generation, not the ones that are earning now. What happened to Bengalis that were bookworms and stocked up their houses with books?
They will say that they read on Kindle or some other platform but honestly, after becoming an author all the requests of reading my books I get are from those who want money in exchange, and I have to swallow that insult at least twenty times each month! Where are actual readers? People like me who will read anything and almost everything if it is supplied for free! Wont mind buying many if they can afford? I guess they all have become writers these days, and genuine readers have simply morphed into writers.
Please share your opinion!
Well, it was sort of annoying to be honest, and depressing, even if your world is not affected by the pandemic the suffering of others certainly ruin your mood! You cant help it! On the final day of April let us hope things will take a turn for better, for all of us! Especially those whose lives have been turned upside down!And the article I published in linkedin today is here for you:
dismal state of authors these days:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/dismal...
Well, I grew up reading the stories of the challenges that authors of earlier times faced, and they were grim believe me!
It will hurt any booklover to think about the hardships they faced when they were alive, and then when they were dead their books made their publishers rich or affluent whatsoever!
We, those who love those authors wished they had enjoyed our fandom when they were alive.
But modern times have given us authors even darker a gift, I am an Indie author, who has published all her works for free in Kindle {God bless you Kindle} after being duped by a publishing firm that took 5000 rupee and created a book that was straight out of nightmares! I can create better books without any knowledge of book-making with the help of tools Kindle provides, for free!
But that is not the darkness I was talking about, I was talking about those mails I receive promising me critiques if I pay them money! Wow! that is a new height in tormenting authors! Our predecessors did not get money for their works and now critiques ask us for money to write about our books, getting free books is not enough for them! Awesome!
Wonder what next!
My passion for writing and JustFiction Edition publisherhttps://www.linkedin.com/pulse/my-pas...
I am an accidental writer, ever since I can recollect I was a bookworm, the joy I found in company of books I found nowhere else, they were my friends, teachers and guide. Even though I relished them to the core I never dreamt of writing, boredom made me do it and it instantly caught the eyes of the editor of MSN's reader's archive back in 2009.
After that there was no stopping, first it was MSN, then Wordpress, I was writing and writing! Even then I did not imagined about publishing my works as books but that too happened in 2014 in Kindle, next step was Shoptly because I am an obsessive writer and painter. They were self-published and a part of my heart was hungry to be accepted by a publisher. Tried a few then gave up, diverted my energy to Shoptly- the store of my own creations.
Then one day out of the blue a mail came to me from Vanessa, she asked me if I was interested in publishing my works with them. I flatly told her that I won’t be able to pay a dime (I have read such offers by dozens, publishers asking for money to publish your work), her response was we won’t charge you a dime and that was true. Once she approved my story I was given a format, I wrote the stories in that format and mailed them back to her, she corrected a few things and asked me to upload them in the site. Voila! I was a published author.
The best part is they send your books to critiques and publicize it on their own, in Amazon etc. That is quite a relief for an author who is juggling the time among writing, painting, blogging, editing and marketing her other books on her own! After all we have hand-counted hours in our days! As for critiques you either need good contacts or a good publisher to draw their attention. It was a relief to know JustFiction will do that for you!
The journey to get published in JustFiction was smooth as silk. I am not a very tech-savvy person or one expert in creating documents in supplied formats, I have tried and failed to understand the formats of many sites, but JustFiction’s format was really easy to follow and work with. If you want a blank document you can drop me a mail, I will send you the blank format.
I have just published my second book with JustFiction.
Sharmishtha basu
an author of Red butterfly and Harmony
https://www.justfiction-edition.com/
https://my.justfiction-edition.com/ca...
https://www.morebooks.shop/store/gb/b...
https://www.amazon.com/Red-Butterfly-...
Strange island and other stories
https://www.morebooks.shop/store/gb/b...
https://my.justfiction-edition.com/ca...
Thanks Teresa, I will check my mail and tell you if I received it or not.All the best for your book!
