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Words form in my mind yet elude me

they take a stroll besides me

before they interlock to form

feelings

giving a meaning to the forbidden storm.

Words form as I tap blankly on my keyboard

to bring a smile or a tear

as they strum chords

that I have snatched and stowed away

all that is meant to be buried to keep me sane

all that is supposed to have died with that hurricane.

Yet,

words form and evaporate again…

I let them fly

I do not want to see them any more.

The raw heat of June –

no I do not want to store

I morph back to the soft caress of September

I clear the mist

and force my mind to get back to my task list !

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Time elapsed

left its trace

what once was just a lavender field

now mapped with a deep ravine

and just an empty time

since we drew a line.

Memory’s stuck

of mist, fragrance and you

of those moments few

I turn around and glance

on those days of prance.

Moments rolled on

yet has still got me trapped

I do not want to see

that you are not you

and me is not me.

You are you

what time has made you

Me is me

what time has made me.

I stir, yell and scream

to free me and to restore

awake from my dream

and erase this lingering scent.

Yet, I just want to be

just stuck in that lavender field

where you are just you

and me is just me.

 

Today again I feel restless and know that though there is no clear thought, yet, there are a lot of words that need a vent.

Not mere words, disjointed, but deep thoughts. Might not mean anything to many, but may make some sense to a few. Some wanders out there, who connect through words and chords. I feel, as if someone has strummed a guitar somewhere, and it resonates in my head. There is so much vibration that I cannot concentrate anywhere. I need to find that character. I need to give him a name. I need to create that face. Give some definition. Does he have wrinkles? Does he have a mole? Is his voice soul-stirring? I know nothing. Nothing yet. But I am restless to find. To create. I am restless to see him take shape. Why do I feel there is no time? Why do I feel I am racing against time? But for a fact, shaping of characters does take time!

As I fight with the vibrations in my head, the night sleeps, the household sleeps. A gentle calm prevails. Let me close my eyes and try to get some to sleep too.

Good Night

There are days when I walk around in daze. Things get done. But my heart is not in it. There is a haze in my eyes. The alphabets glide and trickle down my brows and into my eyes and roll down my cheeks.

What is it that drives me into that state? Well, I think, when I put off writing a bit too long and the thoughts crowd my mind. When the tussle in my mind is:  weather to give the next two hours to my work deadline or to settle in my corner all cuddled up with a cup of coffee to pen down my thoughts. A moment when I am too close to my thoughts to make any sense of them, yet I know that they would make sense in time and usually they do, when they fit within the larger picture.

For now, I have to just keep moving… in directions apparently random, blindly guided by my own steps and not sure of the destination. Many destinations and all appear hazy and crisscrossed. But the fire in me, I am sure, would melt the waste around the core! I hope one day I can see the core, shining in my eyes… bright like a diamond!

 

A moment I devoured    
when you had appeared     
from the corner of that chest-wood tree    
so vivacious and free.    
 
I hit a wall    
and woke up with the fall    
reached out     
and just felt that cold wall.    
 
I replay it all    
you did turn a different corner    
while I still relished my stroll.    
All along, reckoned you were there    
it turned out,    
they were mere shadows of my own imaginings    
I wake up and see    
an empty corner icy and cold    
and moments never to unfold!

Words spoken,

words heard,

words shared,

words that sealed…

and words also healed,

those scars that had been!

Well between those words,

between those glances,

all the words unsaid,

that gathered and were left unheard…

voices that never found the words –

were those moments ever there?

The smile turns to sigh –

new scars,

new tears,

new fears,

just words..

few words…

enough – to heal.

Enough – to steal.

But I wake and find,

Nothing really was real!

Mere words..

Spoken,

Misunderstood,

Forgotten!

Write a good mushy novel, where everyone is perfect, everything is immaculate and there is no conflict… I am sure, the reader would hardy make it to page 25, if they don’t already throw the book off before that. Without conflict, a work of fiction is what it shouldn’t be, extremely boring.
 
Conflicts like creeps need to jump at your readers, and grip them at the most unexpected turn, and make them glued to the pages to know what happens next.  Even better,  give a slight feel of what’s in store, to let them yearn for more!
 
There are many ways to add conflict. Microscopic view of a few here –
 
Make the character face internal conflict – turmoil, want, greed, ethics, anything where they are internally torn and don’t know which way to go. This will add internal conflict. This will also emotionally connect the reader to the character.
I make my protagonist fall for a man in a situation where she should hold herself back.  How she reacts determines her future. The inner turmoil she goes through while she makes her decision makes my reader connect with her.
 
Outer influences on my characters, give them external conflict. The macro world of my novel. The external forces, posing choices for my characters. How they deal with them will again add conflict.
 
Hooked to a place? My character may have strong affinity to a place and putting them in a situation where they can neither stay there nor leave, will add place conflict. However, they need to have enough reason for that conflict.
 
Similarly, opposing personalities can add conflict. The interactions, motivations and clashes can add enough conflict. It should not be a war situation all the time, but different personalities at cross-roads with conflicting ideas can add conflict interestingly.
 
Each chapter should have a conflict at various level. We need to control the pace of the conflict throughout the novel so as not to exhaust the reader and give them a breather… the phases, when everything sails smoothly and looks perfect, before another conflict hits them.
For a while, I have been wondering how to bring my characters to life. I want them to react the way each one of us does. Make them more believable, livable. Tonight is strange. I woke up about an hour back, when it was still 3 am and kept thinking of certain issues at hand. Just can’t go back to sleep. Whether it is the issue at hand or the double doze of antibiotics I am on, difficult to identify.
What’s interesting is the learning from the past hour, when I let my mind toy with various thoughts that crossed my mind. I am sure, this learning can be quite natural to a few of you, or maybe, well learnt as a part of some writing course, by few others out there, but for me, it was a lightening.
I realised that the characters behave out of their own experience. We need to create that experence around them for them to behave the way we want them to. If I want my character to take everything casually, I need to have his/her childhood experience or maybe some close people around them that would condition their thinking in that direction.
It is imperetive that we have a background that is a perfect match to our charater’s reactions. I cannot have a character who is happy-go-lucky when I am showing that the entire childhood of my charater was spent in turmoil and amidst violent parents.
These character traits are obvious, for some, but then, once we learn from our own experience, we know how valid they are. If I have a character who is timid, I need to have a reason for her to be that way.
Also, some of this backround can be withheld and revealed as the story unfolds, at a point where the antagonist realises the motive of the protagonist, or at a self-actualizing state.
It’s amazing, how sometimes, we get ideas at the most unexpected times of the day. I had to get up and write this and now I am off to bed again….
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