Each time I start preparing for a creative writing workshop for children, I pray nobody has heard the story of the Library Lion. It’s my star story, and I love it as much as the kids who just lose themselves in the story the first time they hear it. The first time I started telling a bunch of 8-yr-olds the story, I did not even know I could roar like a lion. Now, that I have that skill firmly mastered, I do it quite confidently (but not too frequently), much to the delight of the kids.

Before and after these workshops, I am usually politely cornered by parents who want to know what I hope to achieve by these workshops. My answer to them is always the same, “I want them to never be afraid of a blank page.” It isn’t that the kids have nothing to say, or no imagination to colour their words, but the very act of writing, the very act of creating something other than another ‘composition’ for school, freezes their wild fingers.

Believe me, kids do not really need help with telling stories. They could run away with their imagination while effortlessly pulling along a hundred-tonne freight train, a whole Martian battalion, a million mystical beasts, and their thunderstruck mom. But, what they do need, is the finger on the knot. A spot to focus on so that the roots of the story know where to dig in, and the branches know how far above they have to reach.

A few examples, many well-chosen and well-deserved words of praise, a sheaf of colourful papers, and lots of playful images later, you can let them go. Sometimes, they are as shocked as I am with the brilliant poems and stories they construct. One can never predict how a kid will interpret a particular word or image, or how independent they will be when working with another kid older/younger/as old as them. There are many things I have learned during these creative writing workshops -

1. Some parents will always confuse creative writing with good handwriting.

2. Boys and girls write very good poetry.

3. No matter their age, most kids love listening to stories about bravery, fights, friendship, and grandparents.

4. Most kids love working alone, even if they are paired with their best friend.

5. Initially, kids will hesitate to ask you for the right spelling of words, but if you give it to them without fussing over what they should have known etc., they will ask you for spellings automatically, and won’t even stop writing while they do so, knowing you will save them before you reach that word. Sigh.

6. They prefer stories that make them laugh and move to those that are solemn epics about soldiers who are fighting for the love of a fair princess. (Eeeeyuck, one boy said, when I asked him what he thought about Sinbad).

But, one must not forget that creative writing is improved in conjunction with a better reading habit. Like charity, a good reading habit starts at home. Let kids see you with your nose buried in a book. Tell them what you are reading and what you think about it. Read books with them, and let them choose books from stores and from your personal library. The more a child reads, asks questions, and applies to his/her everyday world, the more creative they can be.

It's light, and I carry it around absolutely everywhere I go

I hate, absolutely hate, to admit it, but my currently-gloating husband was right after all. It isn’t too difficult to get used to reading books on a dedicated e-book reader, such as the Kindle. It’s really easy on the eyes (the screen is not like your mobile phone screen, so it does not mirror light back at you), doesn’t trail wires, dammit, it does not even look like a gadget when it’s resting in its case, and once you are hooked to a book, you honestly do forget that it is a device you are holding in your hand. Heck, I even tried turning the page when I was reading Changeless (a book in the Parasol Protectorate series).

But wait! Before you roll your eyes and call me a traitor for giving up on real books, hear me out — I still love books in what I will refer to as their ‘proper form’. Hand me a paper book, and hand me its e-version on my Kindle (they cost nearly the same still), and I would rather read the paper book. If I had a really huge bookshelf at home, and a really good bookstore round the corner, I would be hunting for my next read there, and not buying from an e-store. But, most bookstores in Bombay have nothing more than a great selection of the top ten bestsellers, and yesterday’s top ten bestsellers, and pen knives, and keychains. Books of the ‘excellent, unputdownable, but not popular yet’ genre do not seem to enter these stores. For instance, high-octane writers like David Quammen, John Man, Jasper Fforde, and old stalwarts such as Jules Verne, Mark Twain, and Patricia Highsmith are not properly represented in today’s bookstore. Neither do many bookstores offer to get you the books you are looking for. And when an intensely addictive writer like John Man beckons you with the map of the world in the year 1000, or gives you the story of the alphabet, I just have to start reading immediately.

A short digression — now that I think of it, the way I buy books these days has changed a lot, compared to how it used to be even three years ago. Back then, to determine my next read, I would rely on recommendations made by friends, and supplement it with my own foraging in magazines, blogs, and newspapers. After that, I would prowl around bookstores till I got cross-eyed reading the vertical-horizontal bookspines till I found the book. And then, I hesitantly tried online book stores, and preferred buying my books via my laptop.

These days, I continue to forage for recommendations on blogs, magazines, and Goodreads for my to-read list. One more click (having my husband’s Amazon password, and credit card details help) and the book is mine. Within minutes.

Alright, I am sorry. I am not swooning over the wonders of modern technology, or trying to show how I am a better reader because of the Kindle, or anything of the sort. But the curious fact is, I have been a happier reader since I got the Kindle. The first few days were frustrating, I had a hundred Classics I had always wanted to read (you can download most of them for free from Gutenberg, and other sites), a few new books my husband thought would lure me into the Kindle, and I did not know what to start with. After two pages of Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 (it was in the wrong format, pdfs don’t read well on the Kindle), and four pages of McCall Smith’s first instalment of Corduroy Mansion (it just didn’t grip me enough) I glumly skipped a few more books. I protested nastily that e-readers aren’t worth the hype. The husband almost gave up on me then.

And in this case (note the reading light!), it looks like a slim organiser, which keeps away curious people from peeking over my shoulder while I read in the train

Until finally, I found Mercy by Jussi Adler Olsen. I could not keep the book (Kindle) down, and was stuck to it for three days. A good side-effect of reading on a dedicated e-reader has been that I now, instantly look up difficult words as I read them. Nice no?

The other things I like about the Kindle — you can read while you are eating, and not worry about the fan ruffling the pages, you can look up words and facts on the Wiki, you can refer to books you have already read when you are discussing them with others, if you are travelling you can carry all your reference books (if they are in the right format), and books to suit every mood. What else?

Um, no matter where I find the aforementioned gloating husband lurking around to smirk and say ‘I told you so’, I can now ignore him properly by burying my nose in a good book.

The story so far: Nobel Laureate author Sir V. S. Naipaul, was interviewed at the Royal Geographical Society recently. Someone asked him if he considered any woman writer to be his equal. Mr. Naipaul said, “I don’t think so.”

He also said, during the same interview, after dismissing women writers because of their “sentimentality” and their “narrow view of the world” that “my publisher who was so good as a taster and editor, when she became a writer, lo and behold, it was all this feminine tosh. I don’t mean this is any unkind way.”

Well of course he doesn’t! It’s just us sentimental foolish women who have a narrow view of the world who are sniffling into our lace hankies and fainting on our bed while our pretty French poodles strike a sympathetic pose near our feet. Alack! Alas! Waily Waily! What a narrow view of the world we have! I should perhaps take heart in the fact that he does love us silly creatures. Did he not say in A Bend in the River, that ‘if women weren’t stupid, the world wouldn’t go round.” Aw shucks! Go away you smooth-talker! I’ve never heard such high praise before in me life!

Look, no author is the best, or the greatest. The greatest in his/her country, continent, hemisphere, planet, galaxy, universe, dimension… It is just not possible. You might be good, you might have coined a few thousand words, your books might still be on the bestseller list centuries after you have died. But, you cannot be the greatest ever. Who decides this anyway?

Shouldn’t it be a unanimous decision then?

Is it based on number of copies sold?

What if the greatest writer was someone who has not been discovered by a publisher, or readers?

Would the greatest writer be someone who wrote only in one language? 

But, why, oh why why why, compare men and women and their approach to writing? Why get down there? It isn’t news that women write, it isn’t news that men write. Why compare? Who decides who writes better? A man or a woman?

In fact, it isn’t really news that Naipaul is a misogynist. What bothers me is that knowing he is a misogynist, who, just who, in their right mind, who did not think that this would lead to a controversy, who asked him this question. Of course Naipaul would say that women are inferior, unequal, or whatever he thinks. Of course, he would. Whoever asked, expected this. Ask any arrogant, opinionated person such a cleverly phrased question, and you are sure you get a controversy and enough fuel for a 100-year war.

Who asked? Seriously, who really cares what Naipaul thinks? Will it change the world?  The Guardian wrote ‘V S Naipaul finds no woman his literary match – Not even Jane Austen’. And what does it mean when they say ‘not even Jane Austen’. Not even? Is she the only woman writer we could dare to hold up to the ‘greatest writer’? Why did he single her out? Tip to writers from an avid reader, if you are ever called the greatest writer, do try to be humble. It isn’t an official title anyway. It bears no significance outside the little group that has bestowed on you this honour.

Sigh. Apparently he also said, “And inevitably for a woman, she is not a complete master of a house, so that comes over in her writing too.”

Really, Mr. Naipaul? Did you have to do that? Gosh! You lost me at hello.

When a writer begins to ask herself ‘what’s the point of writing anything’, you know she may never get back to writing again. There is something inherently so poisonous in the question ‘why’ that it strangulates all creativity, and all desire. Questioning the motive for spending lots of energy and time on putting down words on paper (or on any other activity, come to think of it), is the last stage of writer’s block and is something that can be cured only by the most powerful miracle the universe can summon up.

Meg Carpenter is stuck with bills to pay; a damp house that aggravates her asthma; a boyfriend who is an unpaid volunteer at a heritage site; deadlines for book reviews she must get around to doing; and a novel she wishes to write, but doesn’t know how to begin. In short Meg’s mind is ripe for some philosophising, some desperate plans for making money, and a billion excuses to rationalise why she cannot write anymore.  

Our Tragic Universe was by far the best book I have read in the longest time. The plot was believable, the characters were as real as me, there were interesting snippets of information about physics, immortality, magic, philosophy, literature, and life. But, what I liked best about this book was that it was a no-holds barred look at a real writer’s life. This is exactly how most writers think, criticise, worry, debate, question, and analyse writing and the world they write about! Add to this a healthy dose of supernatural incidents, lost friends, a new house by the beach, a jolly dog, and frequent discussions about the art of writing and characterisation, and this becomes a book that has to be read over and over again.

Let me show you an excerpt. So, here we are — Meg who has to write a novel not just because that’s what she believes is her calling, but also because she needs the money is at her wit’s end because she doesn’t know where to begin, has this conversation with her friend in a pub:

“‘… How cool is this: I’m going to structure the whole thing as a writer’s notebook, just like one of mine. It’s going to be all non-linear and experimental and the reader will have to put together the story for him- or herself. I thought it meant I’d have to start again from the very beginning – again- but I’ve just realised I can use loads of stuff I’ve already written, sort of as “draft material’… In fact, I think I might just make the writer dead. Maybe her notebook has washed up like a message in a bottle or something, and then the reader has to work out what’s happened to her from fragments of her real and fictional narratives…’

“Libby frowned. ‘So there won’t be any story, just notes?’

“‘Yeah, but the notes will come together to make a story, or maybe two stories. I guess it’s hard to describe, but I can see exactly how it will work. I think you can have too much story…’

Could Scarlett Thomas be referring to this book? Did I mention that she teaches creative writing in Kent? This book has the feel of being quite non-linear and experimental, and yes, the frequent diversions into various subjects make this exactly like the book Meg wants to write. That’s a clever way of juggling narratives, characterisation, and reality/fiction.

I must confess that I liked this book so much that I began visualising me as the protagonist. There I was walking the beach with my dog, looking for a mythical beast, wondering how to get out of a stagnant relationship, talking to the Universe and asking for money, and tragically, coming to terms with the fact that maybe I could never write at all, maybe I never had been able to write.

A must-read for those who want to write. Totally recommended!

Suman Agarwal was an unremarkable twenty-three year old… Aimless by day and call center executive by night, she had nothing more than the simplest Cinderella dream of marrying a wonderful man and living happily ever after… 

Set mainly in present-day Delhi, Bhavna Rai writes her first novel from a vantage point. Her experience with IT outsourcing projects goes back to the time when India was not yet the world’s back office. In her words – ‘The world changed, and I witnessed it.’ In Fate, Fraud, & A Friday Wedding (published by Cedar Books), Bhavna Rai draws on all the experiences she has gathered through the last 14 years she has spent in the industry. She writes with authority about the way technology firms work and the people who make it all happen.

This is a well-crafted read. Swiftly paced, and populated with several believable characters. The first thing it reminded me of was Arthur Hailey’s authoritative tomes about various industries. I remember the Hailey-marathon I participated in one long summer, several years ago. Fat books, tiny print. The Omniscient Narrator. The action shifted abruptly from one character to another, and as the book would draw to a close, everyone and everything would come together for a final showdown. But, most of all, Arthur Hailey was well known for how well he researched material for each book. He delved deep into the very heart and soul of one industry at a time. Has anyone read Hotel, The Moneychangers, Wheels, Flight into Danger, Detective, or The Evening News?

Well, that’s how Bhavna writes. She delves deep into the soul of India’s IT industry and the people who run it and keep it running. I must add here though, that as the book draws to a close, the reader will find that a couple of the main characters were not who they seemed to be. And this transformation is not completely flawless. This jarred a bit. But, while I ruminated over this, I read again what made me like the characters in the first place. And I found that each one of them had believable motives, and their words reflected their background, their attitudes, and even their thoughts seemed theirs, not the narrator’s. Most books today do not get this multiple-character perspective right; everyone sounds alike, and thinks alike. Rai saves this book from falling into that abyss of homogeneity.

I do have one grouse though. Why the long title? It sounds too much like the badly edited, unreadable books that some publishing houses churn out by the millions. I would have thought this could easilyhave been a one-word title book. The title summarises too much, I think. But overall, a good read. 

For those who are contemplating publishing your own book, here’s an interview with Bhavna. She talks about the writing and publishing process — extremely valuable information for new authors.



And from my very kind and erudite friends at Pritya, who are wonderful publishers indeed, here is an excellent reading list for young readers:

Some time back (writes Pritya to the parent who had a query concerning good books for children), I have compiled a list of books that might interest children of this age group and it might be useful for parents here. Here goes the list:

* Percy Jackson series ( 5 books) – The Lightning Thief / Sea of Monsters / Titan’s Curse / Battle of Labyrinth / The last Olympian

* 39 Clues ( each volume written by a different writer)
• The 39 Clues Book 1: The Maze of Bones is the #1 New York Times bestselling title by Rick Riordan, available now.
• The 39 Clues Book 2: One False Note is the follow-up #1 New York Times bestselling title by Gordon Korman, in stores now.
• The 39 Clues Book 3: The Sword Thief is by kid favorite Peter Lerangis and is on the shelf now.
• The 39 Clues Book 4: Beyond the Grave, by award-winning author Jude Watson, is available now.
• The 39 Clues Book 5: The Black Circle is written by bestselling author Patrick Carman and will be on sale August 11th.
• There are five more books coming, ending with Book 10 in September 2010!
* Anthony Horowitz
• Alex Rider Series
• The Power of Five Series
• The Diamond Brothers Series

* Jonathan Stroud ( http://www.jonathanstroud.com/)
• The Bartimaeus Trilogy
* Mark Haddon – The curious incident of the dog in the night time ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Haddon)
* The Magic Thief (Sarah Prineas) http://www.sarah-prineas.com/
* Chicken Soup series
* Michelle Paver ( Daughters of Eden Trilogy)
* Douglas Adam ( The Hitch hiker’s guide to the galaxy – radio programme written as a book)
* Benjamin Hoff ( The Te of Piglet & The Tao of Pooh) – Zen Philosophy
* Rajit Lal ( Books for children) – These are not expensive and there are many titles.
* John Boyne ( Boy in striped pyjamas)
* Mathew Reilly – Contest

*_Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer (5 Books)_*
-/Artemis Fowl/
-/Artemis Fowl: The Arctic Incident/
-/Artemis Fowl: The Eternity Code/
-/Artemis Fowl: The Opal Deception/
-/Artemis Fowl: The Lost Colony/

*_Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling (6 Books)_* [If you haven't already read these, of course) [Wink]
-/Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone/
-/Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets/
-/Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban/
-/Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire/
-/Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix/
-/Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince/

*_A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket (15 Books)_*
-/Book the First: The Bad Beginning/
-/Book the Second: The Reptile Room/
-/Book the Third: The Wide Window/
-/Book the Fourth: The Miserable Mill/
-/Book the Fifth: The Austere Academy/
-/Book the Sixth: The Ersatz Elevator/
-/Book the Seventh: The Vile Village/
-/Book the Eighth: The Hostile Hospital/
-/Book the Ninth: The Carnivorous Carnival/
-/Book the Tenth: The Slippery Slope/
-/Book the Eleventh: The Grim Grotto/
-/Book the Twelfth: The Penultimate Peril/
-/Book the Thirteenth: The End/
-/Lemony Snicket: The Unauthorized Autobiography/
-/The Beatrice Letters/

*_The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tokien (4 Books)_* [Wink]
-/The Hobbit, or, There and Back Again/
-/The Fellowship of the Ring/
-/The Two Towers/
-/The Return of the King and the Annals of the Kings and Rulers/

*_Dragonlance by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman (6 Books)_*
_The Chronicles_
-/Dragons of Autumn Twilight/
-/Dragons of Winter Night/
-/Dragons of Spring Dawning/
-/Dragons of Summer Flame/
_The Legends_
-/Time of the Twins/
-/War of the Twins/
-/Test of the Twins/

*_Classics_*
-/The Three Musketeers/ by Alexandre Dumas
-/To Kill a Mockingbird/ by Harper Lee
-/Treasure Island/ by Robert Louis Stevenson
-/Kidnapped/ by Robert Louis Stevenson
-/The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde/ by Robert Louis Stevenson
-/The Martian Chronicles/ by Ray Bradbury
-/The Illustrated Man/ by Ray Bradbury
-/Something Wicked This Way Comes/ by Ray Bradbury
-/20,000 Leagues Under the Sea/ by Jules Verne
-/A Journey to the Center of the Earth/ by Jules Verne
-/The Invisible Man: A Grotesque Romance/ by H.G. Wells
-/The Island of Dr. Moreau/ by H.G. Wells
-/The Time Machine/ by H.G. Wells
-/The War of the Worlds/ by H.G. Wells

For younger kids too…

* Lemony Snicket (Unfortunate event series
* Spiderwick
* Diary of a Wimpy Kid ( 4 Volumes)

Thank you Jigyasa and Pratibha, for this very helpful list of books!!!

Winter. It’s my favourite time of the year. All two days of it (which is how long winter lasts in Bombay). Unfortunately, it never snows here. But, I have grown up reading books in which kids throw snowballs at each other, and make snowmen, while being snugly wrapped up in the most delicious winterwear. And which book should I get to review but A Winter Solstice Celebration, and the kid on the cover is snugly wrapped up in the most delicious winterwear!

I enjoyed reading this book for kids. What I liked most is the fresh layout of the book. Blue pages and white text, and heavily illustrated. It is a big book (but very light), and most kids would love the idea of reading a book that is bigger than the ones the others are reading. But, let’s get to the story already. A little girl walks into a forest and walks into a meeting convened by the animals who live there. They do not appreciate their forest being taken down, tree by tree, just to ‘celebrate’ the winter solstice.

After hearing their point of view, and making a few friends along the way, she returns to the village and talks to the elders. I won’t tell you if they listen to her and change tradition. But, yes, it’s a happy blue book for children. I love the fact that it tells kids that they can change some of our more illogical traditions.

I wrote to Didi, who lives in Toronto, and had founded a Children’s Theatre Group in Europe. Here’s what she said about the book:

I leave you with proof of the pudding

I was reading Alice Munro’s short stories last night, and tried describing a story to a friend. ‘I know exactly what she is talking about,’ I said happily, ‘how many times have I seen this in my own house, but never, ever, would I have found those words to describe what it looks like, what it feels like. I have never read this described before.’

And there you have it — the mundane, the ordinary, the unremarkable life, described.

What’s ironic is that it’s only when you try writing it all down: the train journey, the dinner you ate, the parent you love, or don’t love, the bedroom, the chairs, the dog you live with, even your nose or hair — that’s s when you will realise that words don’t come easy. Which is why when someone like Alice Munro or Alexander McCall Smith writes a book about what seems like nothing much, it’s then that you realise even boring lives are interesting.  Because the thoughts are interesting. It would be more accurate to say that the words those thoughts are wrapped in are interesting.

Have you written for yourself lately? About yourself maybe? I try often, and it’s amusing to read after a week, a month, a year or ten years, what had occupied my mind once, what I had obsessed about to the point of hysteria.

If you are a budding writer, remember this — even the best science fiction and fantasy borrows ideas from real life. So if you want to write that critically acclaimed tome that will stay a bestseller till kingdom come, you need to write about life, my friend. I often find that authors working on their first manuscript tend to sacrifice characterisation for plot. The narrative gallops forward, not pausing to describe important, tiny details that will colour the story and paint a vivid picture for the reader.

Think of your favourite book, but don’t open it just yet. Think about an episode in the book you really like. For instance, I love the last passage in the first Harry Potter book, when Neville’s bravery earns him precious points for the Gryffindors. Or, that part in Jonathan Franzen’s The Corrections, when Alfred, an old man suffering from Parkinson’s, feels intense anger and frustration because he finds out that he will have to throw away an entire string of Christmas lights (that he has been unravelling carefully), because a few bulbs in it do not work, and even if he could repair the bulbs, which he cannot because these are ‘modern’ lights, his hands shake too much.

Now that you remember the episode, and can see it in your mind, now pick up the book, and read that episode. See how the words were chosen to carefully build up an experience for you. Now try making an experience for someone else.

A lot of emphasis is put on the fact that reading makes you a better person. It adds to your intellect, gives you a different perspective of different situations in life, helps you gather experiences when you would have otherwise witnessed none and by and large adds to your life in terms of quality of thought, speech and action. Reading texts by scholars and intellects has been the oldest way to educate and enrich oneself.

When Julius Caesar landed in Alexandria one of the two things he wanted to do was visit the great library of Alexandria. The library was home to thousands of scrolls – the work of many generations. Some of the scrolls were brought there by Alexander himself. Scholars came from thousands of miles to read the works. It was said to be the greatest collection in the world.

Caesar could not visit the library – it burnt in front of his very eyes. The fire that spread to the great library and engulfed it was lit by his own men during their war against the Egyptian army. In spite of coming so close to the intellectual wealth of the world Caesar lost the opportunity.

Caesar felt the loss then. But we do not feel the loss today. Today, we do not miss libraries. We do not value them because we do not know their true value. And if, their being badly maintained and not updated is your excuse for not patronizing one, then you are the very cause of the excuse. Libraries need attention to grow. They need readers. They cannot grow in the shade of our indifference but will flourish in the light of our attention.  Libraries do not want clerks to dust the books but readers who would not let dust settle on the books.

Let us change the definition of a library. Libraries are not collections of bookshelves where old forgotten books lay, but, libraries are the inexhaustible wealth of generations waiting to enrich us.

If you live in a place where there are no libraries you should immediately move to a place that does have one. If you cannot do so (it means you are a tree) I urge you to read wisely – read to improve the quality of your mind and life. The act of reading had a purpose – don’t forget that very purpose for which language was invented. There are a finite number of books that you can read in a lifetime – choose wisely what you read.

Did I forget the writer? Did I forget to talk about the person who does the text in the graphic novels! I think I did!
In quite a few graphic novels, the text and the images are brought about by a team of writers and illustrators. But, it’s easy to forget about the writer, when the image so easily captures centrestage.
I didn’t even think about the writer, till I saw a ‘silent’ graphic novel. An entire book with hardly any text, just images. David Small’s Stitches had me wondering if we even need text in well-drawn graphic novels at all. Isn’t text dispensible? I think graphic novels without text tend to be more powerful a reading experience. Each image has to be read slowly, with the reader working doubly hard to ensure that he/she gets into the story, understands what the illustrator wants to convey.