Writing Prompt #1 - What's in the Barn?

I found this very cool writing prompt website that I’m going to start using, both to generate blog posts and to continue flexing my writerly muscles. You can check it out for yourself here: Creative Writing Prompts

Prompt - Late at night you awake to find your wife/husband out of bed. Exploring the farmhouse, you find no lights on and the kids are still sound asleep. Past the fields, you see light shining out of the barn. When you walk out there and open the door, what do you find?

I’m expecting to see Francis sitting at his workbench, putting lacquer on the bookshelf or fixing the riding mower. But he’s nowhere to be found. Who turned the light on then?

I pull my robe around me tightly and take a few steps inside. “Honey? Are you in here?” No answer. But then I notice something shift at the back, behind a large curtain that covers an old mirror we’ve been meaning to restore for ages. “Hello?” I pause, getting the sense that I’m not the one in danger here. “It’s okay, you can come out.”

Holding my breath and waiting, I eventually see a small child emerge from the shadows. A girl, probably the same age as my little Myriam. Same dark hair and dark eyes as my daughter too, but the way her cheekbones stick out, the angles of her shoulders and elbows, the too-large dress draped over her thin frame... she clearly isn’t well.

My voice is barely a whisper as I try to coax her forward. “Hi, sweetheart. What are you doing in here?”

She looks past me with a scared expression. “He said he’d bring me a surprise.”

“Who said that?”

A low voice replies from behind me. “I did.” Francis walks past me and I can see relief in the girl’s eyes. He’s carrying a giant bag of candy, the kind that we keep hidden in basement cellar so that the kids can’t get their hands on them whenever they want. I silently watch as the girl creeps forward and sits on the floor of the barn with my husband, the two of them pouring through the bag of candy and selecting which ones they want. Kids always like Francis, mostly because he gives them exactly what they want. As he sits there wolfing down candy with her, my mind is whirring down a different course. This girl doesn’t look like any of the neighbouring kids, and whoever was caring for her wasn’t doing a well enough job. Where did she come from?

Without warning, the girl freezes with a look of panic on her face. “They’re coming for me.”

Francis gives me a brief look. “Don’t worry, we’re going to make sure you’re fi-“

A deafening boom echoes outside, like fighter jets are flying low and just broke the sound barrier. The girl screams, high-pitched and terrified. I try to grab both her and my husband at the same time but a blinding flash suddenly illuminates everything. I fumble, my fingers graze someone’s sleeve but I’m not sure whose, and I trip forward and land on the soft hay floor. The roar continues to split my head, making it impossible to speak over the noise, but then I feel the girl’s small hand on my shoulder. I feel a strange tug in the air, like a wave of pressure is pulling me towards some mysterious centre. I want to ask what’s going on, my eyes are beginning to recover from the flash of light. But the most I can do is turn back to look at Francis, who is sitting behind me with a handful of my bathrobe held tight in his fist. Then there’s a second wave, stronger than the first, and pricks of darkness crowd my vision. I’m falling, passing out, and I can only hope that I will wake up soon.

Blog Topic #63 - You Are Here

Yes, you are here. Where is here? Here is ~*~*~THE FUTURE~*~*~

Exciting, no?

Let me explain. In the last year or so I feel there have been a few technological and scientific developments that really hit home the message that a lot of time has passed since I was a child. Like 3D printing drugs. Seriously. WE CAN PRINT DRUGS WHAT.



I know that technically the future never arrives, it’s always out there before you, but I don’t care what the people say, the future is NOW!

When I was a kid, they told us we’d grow up and live on moon colonies and vacation on Mars. None of that came true obviously, but other things did. We were so focused on the outer world, on outer space, that we forgot about our inner worlds, a world of DNA fragments and energized electrons. Before you know it, we’ll be operating on a quantum internet people!

More food for thought: this AT&T ad from 1993 that basically predicted the future.



We live in a world where you can video chat with anyone around the world (well, except for Syria right now), a world where a pre-verbal babies/toddlers know how to unlock an iPhone and find the YouTube app, a world where you can access real time photos and content the moment events break across an ocean. To some this may not seem like a big deal, but I am starting to find the present quite futuristic. :)

Blog Topic #27 - How Women Use Social Media

Another amendment to the topic title...

Blog Topic #27 – How Women I Use Social Media

(Because “women” are not some kind of monolithic hive mind, duh. We are, however, made up of individuals with their own tastes and preferences, and here I am!)

I’d say I’m a bit of a social media junkie, in the sense that the moment some trendy new app or website pops up I get an account and attempt to participate. Whether I actually use it effectively or at all is a different story. Let’s break it down.

Facebook – I have a very love-hate relationship with Facebook. I’m always bitter that I can’t be done with its terrible privacy settings and delete my account, because if I did I’d have no social life. :P I basically use Facebook to keep abreast of everyone’s lives; places they travel to, changing jobs or moving cities, getting engaged/married/babies, etc. Aside from that, I use it to mostly post music videos I really like, or sometimes geeky/feminist articles that catch my eye. My status updates are mostly about hanging out with friends or bitching about the weather. I don’t really get too serious or political on Facebook. That’s what Twitter is for. ;)

Livejournal – My first real foray into social media, I’ve mostly abandoned it in favour of other avenues. But from like 2002 to like 2009 it was my lifeblood. As a blogging platform, it was perfectly suited for me to squee about my favourite TV show and obsessively deconstruct every nuance of plot and character development. And similar fans responded! We became friends in real life! LJ also gave me a venue to try another highly specific form of graphic design: icon design. Not to mention all the fanfic I posted there. Seriously though, where do the kids post fanfic these days??

Pinterest – Honestly I still don’t really ~get~ what Pinterest is for. I only pop over when someone links to a cleaning related lifehack or pretty nail art. Otherwise I’m like “ugh, people, stop posting about food, food is boring”. :P

Twitter – this is my main hub of social media these days. So many other apps and websites revolve around it, it’s easy to make it central to my online presence. I feel a lot more anonymous on Twitter too (less of my real life friends follow me there), so speaking my mind doesn’t feel so fraught. I mostly retweet other people or link to articles I like. I’m a big Instagram fan and everything I create goes straight to Twitter.

Tumblr – I like to describe Tumblr as “Twitter but with pictures”. That might have been how it started out as for me, but it’s grown into this weird, unwieldy vortex of timesuck that I tried to avoid because, well, timesuck. Once I get on there, I start reposting all the awesome stuff I come across and CAN’T STOP. I come for the gifs, but stay for the intersectional screeds of real-talk.

Blog Topic #88 - Shaking Things Up

It’s no secret that part of my identity includes the term “writer”. I’ve been writing one way or another (diary, fiction, etc.) since I was around thirteen years old. I’ve got a prolific fanfic resumé, I’ve been blogging for years, and I’ve got this dream of writing my own novel as well.

But in the last couple years, that dream stalled. It started first with a fall-out with fandom; without a new TV show or movie for me to be passionate over, my inspiration dried up. Then, I noticed that it was getting harder and harder for me to remember my dreams when I woke up, another one of my methods of inspiration gone. In addition to my usual sources of inspiration disappearing, there were other factors that made writing difficult. On the “there’s not enough time” front, I bought a house and found myself in a long term relationship, both things that I like to devote care and attention to (therefore diverting attention away from my writing aspirations). Finally, I started a job that requires that I sit in front of the computer a lot, and now that I’m a little older the last thing I want to do when I come home is more sitting in front of the computer, my shoulders and back can’t handle it.

So there are reasons. But reasons can also be excuses. I still want to write a novel, but it’s hard when your creativity is in a rut. Thankfully I found this article (on my favourite inspirational website Tiny Buddha): 8 Ways We Block Our Creativity And Keep Ourselves Stuck. I’m totally a victim of every single one of those pitfalls, the worst being that writing my novel stopped being about a personal accomplishment and more about its potential marketability. So I thought: “Self, forget about seeing your novel in Chapters and Indigo, forget about publishing and getting an agent... this is about creating something that makes you proud.”

Exactly a week later, I met up with a high school friend of mine that I hadn’t seen in some time and she was bubbling with excitement I hadn’t seen in her for some time. She had recently seen a musical that was inspiring her to try her own hand at writing a three-part tragicomedy script/play. I told her about my own lack of inspiration over the last couple years and my recent epiphany. And she said, “maybe there’s a reason we’re meeting at this moment in time!” I don’t believe in karma or synchronicity but it was still awesome to talk to someone on the same wavelength, who encourages you to follow your passions.

So that’s how I’m shaking things up. This Friday is going to be devoted to sitting in bed with my laptop and getting back in the groove of things. :D

Blog Topic #37 - Book Shopping (Buy These Books)

Another amendment: Blog Topic #37 – Book Shopping (Buy Read These Books). Cause being thrifty is awesome and more power to you if you can get these books at the library or borrow them from a friend!

Any list like this is going to be extremely biased and personal to the author, but I’m going to give its a shot anyway. These are the books that found their way into my life and will be a part of my bookshelf till the day I die or can’t read anymore:

Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie – This is a book that manages to be beautiful and poetic on one side while being frustrating and bizarre on the other. The real highlight is Rushdie’s prose though, in this novel his craft is at its height. It’s almost as if he’s plucked the words from the brain of some cosmic maestro. Well worth the read, especially with a couple different plotlines to keep the reader occupied.

A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth – Despite being alarmingly hefty, this book is one of my favourites. In fact, after I finished if for the first time I was saddened to realize I was only 20 years old and had already read the best book of my life. ;P You need to prepare yourself for this book. There are so many characters that Seth had to include a couple family trees in the beginning for reference purposes, and their stories intertwine in the most surprising ways. There’s also an in-depth focus on Indian politics soon after its independence, which can be dry for some (myself included). But I ended this book feeling like I had just read a story about my own distant relatives, that’s how real Seth makes his story.

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë – I picked this book as an English project in grade 11 and was startled by how much I liked it. Then when I was in university I bought a discounted copy and realized that I could enjoy the story far more now that I was an adult. In fact, the older I get, the richer this novel becomes. Bronte was a trailblazer of her time and it shows through the main character’s actions and the little soapbox moments the author throws in every now and then. For a classic, it’s completely relatable for a modern woman like me, which is why I suppose it’s a classic to begin with. In the end, I’m enamoured with the way Jane Eyre is a lot like me.

Innocence by Kathleen Tessaro – I think this novel is categorized as “chick lit” but I don’t understand why, other than the fact that the main character is a woman and she has relationship issues. But the book is so much more than that. Romance plays second fiddle to the angst and agony of past choices, finding your calling, and the figuring out if you have the courage to truly live life. I think if you’re someone who spends a lot of time inside your own head and in search of your purpose, you’d enjoy this book.

JPod by Douglas Coupland – Coupland is known for his unorthodox writing style and frankly I find it something to aspire towards! As someone who does a lot of technical computer stuff at work and at home, this book was so much fun. Completely irreverent and seemingly lacking any kind of cohesion or plot, you get caught up in a world where nonsense is the norm in an otherwise stale existence. Also, with bonus Canadian content!

The Palace of Illusions by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni – Back to the Indian stories; I know it’s been interpreted and postulated for ages but who can say no to a fictional examination of the Mahabharata from Draupadi’s perspective? I have to admit that when I started the book, I was flailing a little because I felt like I was reading something mildly blasphemous. But after a couple reveals I was flailing in a good way. That being said, I don’t understand how anyone who isn’t Hindu would get the kind of enjoyment I did out of this book. Therefore I humbly request that all you non-Hindus out there find a copy and tell me what you think. ;)

Blog Topic #85 - How I Went From Very Shy to Less Shy

It was a two part process!

Part 1 - Grade 10. We all have to pick a semester of some kind of creative art for one of our course selections. Instead of musical instruments (which made sense since I was in the school band) I decided on drama instead. Because despite my introversion and quietness, there was a diva dying to get out. ;) I ended meeting some fabulous new friends in that class, and for the first time I was prancing around and dressing up with people that I felt comfortable around. It really built up my confidence, and I had a great time finding my voice and expressing myself.

Part 2 - 2005. Freshly graduated from post-secondary education and I landed a great job right out of school, at a multinational company. My boss was senior management, therefore I was suddenly rubbing elbows with high-powered executives while we talked about stocks and sipped expensive wine. Stranger upon stranger would waltz into my life, experts in their field with mounds of education and experience. In that sort of environment, I knew one thing: confidence was key. Maybe it was the company's culture as well (I remember people like the CEO asking me to call him by his first name), people were very professional but open at the same time. So I didn't approach the situation as me being the newbie in the midst of sharks. I saw the men and women around me as my peers, my equals, and interacted with them like it was no big deal. Sometimes, I would fly across the country and run meetings with teams of people I'd never met before. I was forced to be at ease in strange and new situations, and it paid off. Now, chatting new people up at a party is nothing compared to shmoozing with rich execs. ;)

Blog Topic #23 - My Mother is On Facebook

The post title is a bit of a lie; I’m not going to talk about my mother being on Facebook. I mean, she is on Facebook, but I haven’t friended her there because that’s going a little too far IMHO. But! She is one of my tweeps on Twitter, so: amendment.

Blog Post #23 – My Mother Is On Facebook Twitter

And let me tell you, no one is as hilarious on Twitter as my mother! She spits realness in the most hilarious ways. Some examples...

Disney buys Lucas Films...Is that why they were saying world is going to end in 2012!!

— Sheela Rama (@SheelaRama) October 30, 2012

If I were in this debate i would either walk out or punch my opponent #debate2012

— Sheela Rama (@SheelaRama) October 23, 2012

Trump should join a circus team!

— Sheela Rama (@SheelaRama) October 24, 2012

Can you believe??Power went out At Superbowl.Epic fail #superbowl2013

— Sheela Rama (@SheelaRama) February 4, 2013

When you listen to Obama talking about immigration reform you realize there's no one cooler than him on this planet!!

— Sheela Rama (@SheelaRama) January 29, 2013

Some of Indian Politicians have truly lost all their brain cells!! #stupidityofIndianpoliticians

— Sheela Rama (@SheelaRama) January 4, 2013

Poor Romney's website doesn't work. How can he become a President?

— Sheela Rama (@SheelaRama) October 23, 2012

LMAO she has a block of angry Romney related tweets last October that are just killing me right now. She also conversationally tweets a lot of celebrities and politicians. She tends to livetweet popular sporting events, award shows, and political debates.

Blog Topic #29 - If I Were a Television Producer

My show would be the shit, I can tell you that much. ;P

Back when I was far more fannish and obsessed with my TV shows (a mere 3-4 years ago), I used to have the most vivid and fantastical dreams that were basically episodes of House, CSI, Bones, or Lost. I shared a few of them with friends and the reaction was generally "omg, I’d watch that!"

My TV show would centre around some sort of supernatural or mystical element in our current world, because as much as I love my scientific procedurals, nothing beats the kind of mindfuck you get from messing with the natural order. And while I love futuristic space-timey shows, world-building is not my forté. The cast would be a variety of ages, genders, races, and orientations. Cinematography would be a big deal, as would the attention to detail on any props. I would be very picky about choosing a composer to do the show’s score and theme song.

It would be an intelligent show. I wouldn’t underestimate the potential of my audience. The dialogue would be succinct but clever, the characters complex and misunderstood, the backdrops epic and intimate at the same time. Aaaand it would be cancelled before the season is over. Isn’t that the way of the world? :P

Blog Topic #84 - Downtime (What I Do Offline to Recharge)

I spend a lot of time online. More than I probably should. And I think it’s gotten worse since I got a smartphone. :P Thankfully, I have a number of offline pursuits to distract me from the shiny lure of the internets. So what do I do in my downtime?

1. I crochet – nothing completely clears my mind like crochet does! Your eyes and brain are completed focused on the yarn and stitches, and you have to watch what you’re doing (unlike knitting). And there’s nothing like watching a pattern come to life and take shape. The only downfall is that if you continue crocheting for too long, your shoulders and neck will not be pleased with you. :P My mom taught me the basics and the rest is I picked up from YouTube.


2. I scrapbook – I really had no intention of getting into scrapbooking because I know how involved and expensive it can be, but I got one of those Mambi kits as a gift and it all took off from there. It’s basically the real life equivalent of making your own desktop wallpaper in Photoshop, which is another pastime of mine coincidently. So I took to it quite well. I love all the fun stickers, picking out photos and laying them out with borders and matting . It’s nice to spend time documenting memories and the people in your life!


3. I watch TV – the offline pastime of kings and queens! I used to be the kind of person who was religiously dedicated to prime time dramas such as Lost, House, Bones, CSI, etc. but I find that I don’t have the patience for such things anymore. I prefer unplugging my brain with a lot of HGTV or something with Gail Vaz-Oxlade on Slice. It's not like there's a plot line to keep track of, plus it's usually educational!


4. I journal – like, in an actual journal, omg. It might not be as quick as typing (and sometimes my hand cramps up, hah) but every now and then it’s nice to meander with your thoughts and document things low-tech style. Old habits die hard; I've been journalling since I was probably 12 years old. Besides, I like the way my handwriting looks! Plus, journalling is extra fun if you're doing it in one of those fancy gilded leather dealies from Indigo. ;)


5. I paint my nails - I've become somewhat obsessed with nail polish over the last couple years and have amassed quite the embarrassing collection (embarrassing only because HOLY CRAP that's a lot of money spent on what is essentially crap haha). It's a great way to kill a couple hours and be creative at the same time. They may be tiny, but even a tiny canvas has limitless potential!


6. I dance - nothing like cranking up the tunes and grooving around the apartment when no one's watching, it's the ultimate stress release. It's fun, it burns calories, it lets me practice my pipes... what's not to like?? :D

What about you guys? When you're not staring at a screen, how do you spend your time?

Blog Topic #10 - Somebody Has To Say It

The best way to enjoy life, to truly see it for the beauty it holds, is to live in the present.

When we live in the past, we’re focused on what has already happened and cannot be changed. We fixate on mistakes made, words we wish we could take back, ways we were wronged. Living in the past will keep you depressed and angry.

When we live in the future, we become focused on the unknown. Life isn’t easily predicted or controlled, there are no simple outcomes, and fate likes to throw us curveballs too. Living in the future will keep you anxious and unsatisfied.

But when we live in the present, when we stop and contemplate the moments passing us by at this very second, the small grandeurs of the universe are revealed to us. We have weathered tempests and arrived. We are exactly where we are supposed to be.

So for today, if only for today, don’t dwell on what has passed and don’t fret about what is yet to come. Today is a gift, enjoy it. :)

Blog Topic #25 - Books I Want to Write

I have so many ideas for this topic because apparently one of my favourite past-times is starting novels I have no intention of finishing, lolsob.

1. This one is the shining jewel of my ideas. So you know the story of Rani Padmini and the sacking of Chitoor? What if there was one young noble-woman who couldn’t go through with the mass immolation and escapes instead? And she seeks asylum at a brahmin’s ashram, where she learns that he is secretly training a new generation of Rajput soldiers to fight against the invading Mughals. She starts to fall for one of the dashing young soldiers and ends up taking on the role of spy and infiltrating the Shah’s court by being his Begum’s maid. And then her she sneaks her paramour in to help him murder the Shah but they’re both CAUGHT and EXECUTED, THE END. God I love this story haha. Too bad I’m bogged down by historical accuracy, or lack thereof.
2. My second favourite idea is this epic eastern-fantasy type novel. It’s the story of a man who’s cursed to slowly turn into a demon, but really it’s about a girl who used to be the court dancer of the gods and was cursed to live in the body of a hawk. Together, they traverse the kingdom searching for a cure, all the while outsmarting suckers, battling with their inner darkness, and possibly falling in love as well. But just as their quest comes to an end, the girl turns evil and tries to usurp the power of the gods, but the man stops her, but it’s too late, they’re both thrown into an inter-dimensional wormhole. They pop out on the other side and end up in OUR WORLD, and then have to struggle with their new reality and FIND EACH OTHER. Another really awesome story that got bogged down by logistics, because I started thinking things like “is this racist against Persians?!” Sigh.
3. Oooh, this one's pretty cool. So imagine an alternate universe, medieval-esque Spain where magic and potions and sorcery are an everyday occurrence. There's this poor orphan girl who's going to magic school but she's kind of weak sauce power-wise but very creative and a good problem solver. One day her and a friend are fooling around with a book they find and cast a spell that somehow creates a portal. They walk through it and on the other side they find... a frazzled university physicist (in OUR world) who at the same time just happened to be smashing atomic particles. Didn't really know where the story went from there aside from the government and politicians and dastardly villains trying to take over the other universe in a grab for power, and it's up for the plucky main characters to stop them!
4. This one started out as fanfic and morphed into something else completely. Again in a fantasy world, a young warrior is out hunting when he comes across a woman passed out by the river. She doesn't look anything like his tribes-people but he takes her back to his primitive village and nurses her back to health. She doesn't know anything about their world and has lost her own memory as well, but long story short they bond and fall in love. Years pass and she's basically one of them until one day she's like "EVERYONE FLEE NOW *UNINTELLIGIBLE LANGUAGE*" and then giant mecha spiders descend upon the village and kidnap a bunch of people and it's up to our young strapping warrior to rescue his woman and find out what the ever loving hell is going on. (Hint: advanced secretive society that likes to build giant mechanized spiders and wants to take over the rest of the primitive world.)
5. At some point I conceived a stream-of-consciousness type novel that was loosely based on my own life but mostly inspired by JPod by Douglas Coupland. Think young woman working at a terrible tech support firm with the best bunch of pot-smoking, car-stealing, shenanigan-having friends a mid-twenties woman could ever have. But I'm not even a fan of books with no plot, so writing it was more an exercise in narcissism than anything else. ;)
   

Masterlist: Blog Project

I was taking a look at this blog recently and noticed there has been a precipitous drop in how frequently I've posted in the last couple years. I went from around fifty posts in 2010 to approximately twenty posts in 2011 to a measly six posts in 2012! I know the reason for this (I blogged so much because I was bored and spent most of my free time at the computer... not the case anymore) but at the same time I want to rectify the situation somewhat and find a happy medium.

Therefore, I am going to schedule a bunch of posts (selected topics courtesy of 100 Blog Topics I Hope YOU Write) and hopefully that will get the creative juices going. I need more creativity back in my life!