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Creative Writing Course with Blogchatter:My learnings
Did you ever take a creative writing course? I wouldn’t have either, if not for the Blogchatter creative writing course launched this year.
I did my schooling from a convent school in Calcutta, till class ten. The next two years were at a bigger school with better results academically. I cherish my experiences at both. But all my writing skills I dedicate to my Carmel School and the teachers who taught me.
When you are thinking about becoming a Doctor , the last thing you would want to learn is grammar. But one interesting thing about the Madhyamik exams(class ten exam in West Bengal), back then was, your total score mattered. If you didn’t score well in the languages, history, and geography, you couldn’t do well.
What helped me to study?
1)I just love reading anything. So first time reading grammar books and literature is not a problem. The problem is revising.
2) For this, I used a trick I learned from a friend. Just write,
I love English
on the first page of your English Book. Looking at it every day will help make your mind more likely to stop the overwhelm of learning many subjects together.
All the subjects you learn at school may seem useless. But you never know what the future holds. I am happy to tell you that my writing career started after my medical career and for this, I draw on everything I learned and learn every day.
As a writer, the world is your oyster, your research library and your audience. What you write, will resonate with some but not all. But if you are someone like me, who listens to their own tune in their head, you only write for people like you.
As Seth Godin says in his new book On Marketing
[bctt tweet=”People like us, do things like this! Seth Godin (This is Marketing)” username=”misra_amrita”]
When Blogchatter shared their idea of giving Bloggers in India a chance to get certified, I was ready. I love learning. Things which help me write better are more fun than most challenges.
What do I plan to learn through this creative writing course?
I have no degree in formal writing, except medical content writing. When I write nonfiction its important to make it relatable, readable and scannable. These are things Yoast helps me with. But one important thing Yoast or Grammarly can’t help is, with creative writing in nonfiction. They can help polish my writing, but can’t really guide. This is where Blogchatter creative writing course can help you.
I think creative writing e-course will help me focus on the storytelling part. Nonfiction need not be boring if storytelling is a part of it. It will make my writing more readable. According to Yoast readability is a big ranking factor.
What makes writing readable?
Fluidity, simplicity and an ability to generate empathy. I hope to make my writing more insightful. Writing in any form is creative. Scientific articles, journals, book reports, and more serious academic writing, needs a protocol. But if it’s your blog , your nonfiction book, what do you do? Will you be high handed and pompous or make your readers want to dive deep?
[bctt tweet=”Fluidity, simplicity and an ability to generate empathy. #Healthwealthbridge” username=”misra_amrita”]
What I learned from Aditya Sinha
- Don’t make nonfiction boring. Most of the time fact is stranger than fiction
- Research well.
- Government websites will give a lot of data for nonfiction research.
- The truth is a strange beast and depends on who is reading it.
- Answer the why in nonfiction.
- Emphasis on causation will help in the primary goal of the nonfiction book.
- The chronological narrative may help in a certain category of nonfiction.
- Interviews and research helps to make a nonfiction book come together in many cases
Golden nuggets:
- Ministry of statistics and program implementation for data-related research in India
- Read The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery for understanding the beauty of simplicity.
Creative writing for a nonfiction
What I learned from Samarpita Sen’s Instagram Live on editing
- Editing starts with the author. You need to do your own editing first, before sending to a professional.
- Developmental editing costs more and rightly so.
- Final proofreading cannot be skipped.
- It’s better to talk to your editor, than text them. A phone call works better than just texts.
- Make your writing crisper, before sending for editing. Total word count makes the cost of editing higher.
- Nonfiction editing needs subject matter knowledge and fact-checking. So choose the editor carefully.
I was reading the book, This is Marketing by Seth Godin. Never in the wildest dreams in my childhood or adulthood did I have any interest in marketing. But blogging makes understanding marketing important. Thats where Seth’s style of creative writing in nonfiction so perfect.
He drives home the point, without lecturing. He shares anecdotes, examples, weird analogies and you understand. Creative writing is that. It draws the reader into the writer’s home. They chat and nod together with a total understanding of all that, which makes little sense to others. If you think your writing is too simple to be creative, you are mistaken. The beauty of creative writing is in its simplicity, its ability to make sense.
This is what I aim to learn and practice with the Creative writing course. Writing this for the Love of Blogging.
Editing tips with Kanchana Banerjee
- Don’t take rejection to heart.
- Editors help shape the story.
- Beta readers may or may not be helpful if they are friends.
- Developmental editing is important.
Golden Nugget: As a writer, write every day. Editing can come afterward.
The session with Neel Anand on Instagram
- Contemporize the thought process while writing mythological fiction
- Use all emotions while writing.
- Remember the viewpoint of a character. Tweak but don’t make radical changes as that affects acceptance.
Golden Nugget: Screenwriting is good money.
Marketing your Book: Session by Kiran Manral:
In this IG live Kiran Manral shared her tips for marketing the book. Work on your blog, social media skills, go live, be real and don’t stop.
She cleared one important question that lurks in my mind. Should I stick to a niche or try different niches? If you are having fun experimenting, there’s no harm in writing about a varied things. Just be careful about your branding. Thats important too.
Golden nuggets from a session with Kiran Manral:
- Have fun with your book promos. If you are bored, your audience will be too!
- You are a writer you are supposed to write creative copy for social media too.Don’t be repetitive. Thats the best way to kill all interest. Make it quirky, inspire curiosity and don’t take your self too seriously.
[bctt tweet=”The beauty of creative writing is in its simplicity, its ability to make sense. #Healthwealthbridge” username=”misra_amrita”]
Listen to my experience with Blogchatter
The anthology To be Read published with 15 other Blogchatter authors can be downloaded for free here for a limited period.
These will help you too!
Should you leave social media when you write?
Big Magic: One book you must read to write better
Blogchatter Ebook festival: Promote your Ebook for free!
Sharing is good Karma!
Poverty Population and Sanitation:Elephant in the room!
Poverty.It’s a sad word. Money troubles are a more polite and genteel word. I grew up in a middle-class family and we had real money troubles. Credit card debts and bad money choices by a parent, can cause chaos in even regular income families.
That’s why I learned deeply, the value of financial independence, of striving for financial freedom, the value of education and the other side of poverty. Abject poverty makes you helpless. Borderline penury makes your choice limited. In most cases, you have a choice to stop wrongful expenditure and spending more than your means. Here in comes the need for awareness. A small family is a happy family for multiple reasons. The biggest one is this.
If as a society we want to come forward to help people stay afloat and rise, platitude will not help. Nor will gyaan. What will help is straight talk and believe it or not, population and poverty are directly correlated.
How to Fight Poverty in India?
Does the chicken come first, or the egg? Do we fight poverty or the population explosion? Does a bursting India mean rising poverty? Or is this even more complicated?
Awareness about methods of contraception
Access to the entire range of family planning methods and a need for compliance is much needed. If you talk about carrot and stick, additional benefits for those who plan their family right. Cash surplus, tax benefits anything. But it needs to be done now.
The basic math of family planning and economics
If you talk about sanitation and poverty like #BLogchatter is doing through their #causeachatter social campaign, you must remember that more the population,
- Higher the waste
- Higher the sewage
- More resources needed.
- Earth has a limited capacity.
- It’s not just money, but the ability of our Mother Earth, to accept the load!
Uneducated, unemployable population with poor health means, you have scanty resources to generate. The Government or the individual can do even less, if those you want to help don’t understand the problem.
Read also: World’s Largest Healthcare programme
For that, we need a carrot. Additional benefits for those who plan their family right
Long term goals
Contraception =Population Control =Additional Benefits .
Short term goals I think is skilling India
Each person gets skilled at a vocational course for generating additional income. Whatever your level of education, adult education can always increase your chances. Don’t stop now. The sky is the limit. Vocational training, urban and rural small farming projects, animal husbandry are all possible in small ways. This helps to create a culture of decreasing food shortage. When people are not hungry, their brain and body both work better. Hunger is painful and you will know that, only if you have ever gone hungry!
Questions were asked by Blogchatter at a Twitter chat, to raise awareness about Poverty and its impact on sanitation. Answering a few questions my way. You may agree, you may not. The point is you do something at your level and I do something with my resources.
How do you think poverty impacts the privileges received by a citizen?
Poverty and lack of awareness is a vicious cycle. People don’t know they have to encash cheques. They keep cheques received under the mattress. Poverty, lack of education, poor health, lack of awareness all drive down to deeper poverty.
Poverty Causes
Why do you think poverty exists?
In India and Mother Earth, Resources are limited. The population is bursting, India is going to overtake China soon! Baby making needs to have some limits. Poverty, population and education have deep connections.50k per month ten kids,50k per month one kid, what’s better? Do the math.
It’s not a simple question and the math is more complicated. But you understand, right? If you are reading this and understanding, you are privileged and the top ten percent of India’s literate population. The rest who need awareness, are not on Twitter and not reading this Blog.
Will it help if you speak in their language? Yes, it will.
Will it help if we do this offline? Yes, it will. But to reach them, the socio-cultural community heads, need to come forward for this to work. Talking about family planning can get you in hot water, in the wrong places.
Effect of Poverty
From your eyes, what has been the biggest impact of poverty on our society?
Poor health, education, and employability all take a nose dive when there’s poverty. Hunger is the first battle to fight. It’s not just in Hunger games that we need to win, but also in real life.
[bctt tweet=”There’s a reason we talk about roti kapra aur makan in that order! #Causeachatter” username=”misra_amrita”]
Sanitation & Poverty
Sanitation is the basic privilege of clean drinking water and proper sewage disposal. How does poverty impact this basic privilege?
That’s why #Swachhbharat and Toilet ek prem katha, is bang on. It has a deep role. Rising population excessive waste. But do we first battle hunger or sewage? Both need to start at the same time. But for it to work and be sustainable, we need a limit on the number.
[bctt tweet=”Unlimited population means this effort becomes unsustainable. #Causeachatter ” username=”misra_amrita”]
What do you think we as citizens can do to help uplift the poor?
No one can uplift. You have to lift yourself up.
- We can help create awareness
- Educate all women and men
- The skill of all men and women.A difficult initiative, but a much needed one to make any real change possible.
- Marriage and age of first pregnancy need to be strictly followed. Poor health leads to excessive resource use but still, childhood malnutrition lingers. Malnutrition occurring in an underage mother is unlikely to have better results.
- Population in India is an asset and a problem at the same time. Its now time to remove the factors, which make it a problem.
Read: Empowering Rural Women
Statistics about Population of India
- The population of India 133.92 crores
- China138.64 crores
- The United States of America32.57 crores
The low female literacy rate means there’s a problem with family planning and population control measures. Literacy doesn’t mean they are educated enough to take measured choices. In many instances its the ability to write their own name with no understanding of the written language in their vernacular or any other language.
What is replacement-level fertility rate?
Replacement-level fertility rate, is the average number of children a woman has to have, to keep the population at a constant size, is 2.1. India is closing in with the overall number of children per woman at 2.3.(Source)
If women in a nation or a region or a group have fewer than 2.1 children each, population decreases. If women have more than 2.1.then we will see the population continuing to rise.
Employable population in India
The percentage of employable population in India has achieved a 5.6 percent increase, from 33 percent in 2014 to 45.60 percent in 2018.Engineers are still most employable.
Final thoughts:
I feel, contraception choices are rarely exercised by the men and many women have zero access, especially in the strata who really need it. Too many babies, too soon, when you can hardly support your own health, is an irresponsible decision.
Parenthood needs responsibility and people are responsible for their choices. Only if you can support yourself and your family, can you grow your family? This needs to be a choice and not necessarily a rule. After all, we are all responsible for our own choices. Blaming other people is easy and useless.
If you can’t reign in population, if you don’t want to do family planning, there’s not enough money in the world to eradicate poverty or prevent destitution.
Writing this to lend a voice to #Causeachatter with Blogchatter.
Read also
Tobacco, Cancer and Your responsibility
Sharing is good Karma!
Forgive:10 Quotes to make you think!
Can you forgive? Can you forget? Does time heal? What happens when you don’t forgive? Do you get a sour taste in your mouth? Does your heart beat increase? Do you feel your face flushing? Do you stop making complete sense?
Anger, the feeling of abandonment, betrayal, distrust, all makes it difficult for true forgiveness. Also sometimes it too late. The person is no more and things change forever. What do you do then? You try to forgive for your own sake. When holding on to the anger makes you feel sick, you know it’s time to let go.
10 Forgiveness quotes to Help you
#1 Always Forgive your enemies. Nothing annoys them as much. Oscar Wilde
#2 Dumbledore says people find it far easier to forgive others for being wrong than being right.J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter
I told you so is this not a great idea
#3 We are told that people stay in love because of chemistry, or because they remain intrigued with each other, because of many kindnesses, because of luck. But part of it has got to be forgiveness and gratefulness . Ellen Goodman
#4 Loving does mean you forgive a lot and forget even more. People have to forgive. We don’t have to like them, we don’t have to be friends with them, we don’t have to send them hearts in text messages, but we have to forgive them, to overlook, to forget. Because if we don’t we are tying rocks to our feet, too much for our wings to carry! C. JoyBell C.
[bctt tweet=”Forgive so that you can fly again! ” username=”misra_amrita”]
#5 Resentment is like drinking poison and then hoping it will kill your enemies. Nelson Mandela
#6 It is important that we forgive ourselves for making mistakes. We need to learn from our errors and move on. Steve Maraboli
#7 Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names.John F. Kennedy
An excellent idea. You don’t want to repeat mistakes right?
#8 The stupid neither forgive nor forget; the naive forgive and forget; the wise forgive but do not forget. Thomas Szasz
This sounds like a working solution!
#9 Often women believe it is a sign of commitment, an expression of love, to endure unkindness or cruelty, to forgive and forget. In actuality, when we love rightly we know that the healthy, loving response to cruelty and abuse is putting ourselves out of harm’s way. Bell Hooks, All About Love
Ladies remember forgiving this means getting out. Fast! Not repeating mistakes. Abuse should never be accepted.
10. Forgiving others is like giving yourself a second chance at feeling better.
- Quotes on Creativity,Art and Nature’s Role
- HCG Cancer Centre, Kolkata, Organised Cyclothon 2025, Engaging 250+ Cyclists to Raise Awareness on Lung Cancer Prevention #PressRelease
- India’s TB Battle Wins #PressRelease
- Ricin Poisoning and the Bioterrorism plot
- Anne of Green Gables
Sharing is good Karma!
Save a School with Project Why:Education for all #HelpMithuSaveSchool
Today I will tell you about a school. A rather magical place where children who didn’t know about dreams, learned how to dream. They were taught by people who understood the value of education. Special teachers and special students deserve our help. Project WHY Okhla Centre has been running after-school support for 350 children. Established almost 14 years ago, it has struggled but has become a beacon of hope.
Sophiya and Pushpa helped set up the school in a dump-yard. They faced opposition from local goons.
Mithu lost his legs, but he refuses to let this challenge get in the way of teaching computers skills to the children.
Naresh, helped several dropouts come back and become toppers.
If they do not receive funds, these teachers will have to work without salaries in the coming months. That’s why we are requesting our readers to help support a fundraiser for these teachers.
Education is special. Its the only way to help empower the millions. But education must be accepted with the right spirit. When the age is right, teach them. Later it may be too late.
While I am writing at the last hour I di my best all through the last two weeks to participate in social media activities.
Why are schools like this important?
Working parents mean young kids are left to fend for themselves after they come from their regular schools. Drugs, trafficking, and illegal activities are easy traps for unmonitored children to fak into. After school activity at Mithu’s school helps prevent these children from walking into darkness. If you want to help.Help now.
How can you help more people fund this school?
- Share on Facebook
- Share on Twitter
- WhatsApp this post to your friends with a few words.
- You are helping India make its future educated.
Pls, share the posts on all social media using the hashtag #HelpMithuSaveSchool.
