In which I explain how I am going to tackle the 100 days project.
I am a big fraud. Not in the alarming sense of " dont pay taxes" or "embezzle company funds" fraud. I dont have the intelligence or the stamina to carry out these activities. No- more in the mundane sense of " Yes I am five minutes away" when I haven't even started or " yes yes, its on track, dont worry we are managing it" when I have no clue of whats going on. Then I go around scrambling to figure out whats going on in the project and scramble some more to ensure that its on track. This when there was no need for me to blabber in the first place.
But my foot in the mouth recently reached a higher level. I had a case of "Foot in the blog mouth". I dont know how else to describe it. Yesterday, as I was writing the post on embarking on the 100 days project, without my knowledge I typed "which will allow me to experiment with different styles of writing". When my brain realised what had been typed it quickly formulated the disclaimer and stuck it alongside the original line. But I had typed something and once the thought of "different styles of writing" crept up my mind it was impossible to repress it and say " I will churn out regular posts for 100 days".
There was a slight problem though. I had no idea what it meant and how to go about doing it.
Few minutes after my post, I was wondering what different styles of writing I was capable of. Well, I thought to myself " I can do movie reviews and book reviews, have never done those before". I was now left with the simple task of figuring out 98 other styles. It then occured to me that I could write for different magazines- different genres of magazines which will ensure that I will be forced to write about topics which I normally dont. I can write columns for Femina, Architecture weekly, homes and interiors, gardening magazines, political magazines, nature& wildlife, food magazines, Psychology, lonely planet, etc. Not only will it force me to expand my horizons of writing , it will also keep my ranting to a minimum as I would pretend I am writing for a magazine.
Of course, none of this precludes fraud. I can clearly see myself writing whatever comes to mind and slotting it into some magazine section. And there is always the option of calling it the column submission for Outlook or Week. Have you seen the irrelevant articles they publish?
One of these days I will make a list of the magazines I definitely want to cover but until then I will post as they come, with a mention of which magazine it is intended for. I am not deluded enough to think that it is worthy of getting published in the magazine, it is merely my attempt at writing for the audience of these. Its just a way of keeping the 100 days project interesting for me with some semblance of a structure instead of random posts being thrown into the universe, all of which can loosely be assembled into one giant post.
As fascinating as this idea is, it comes directly in conflict with a thought I have been having about the blog recently. Unlike business or subject blogs which run purely on content and the greatness of the writing, individuals' blogs need the personal touch. You cant follow some unknown person's blog unless you get some sense of how their lives are. Not every minute details of their lives, but a broad sketch of their life, against which context the readers can understand the blog contents better. Unless their content is so powerful and their writing is so beautiful that you would read them regardless.
So, in the awareness that my writing isnt so fantastic that it will keep the reader hooked, I will make the magazine articles more personal than the ones you see in the actual magazine. I will somehow also try and keep it objective.
Thank you, my dear useless subconscious, for the last paragraph. Now I have to figure out how that needs to be done. Seriously, cant you check with me before just typing stuff?
I am a big fraud. Not in the alarming sense of " dont pay taxes" or "embezzle company funds" fraud. I dont have the intelligence or the stamina to carry out these activities. No- more in the mundane sense of " Yes I am five minutes away" when I haven't even started or " yes yes, its on track, dont worry we are managing it" when I have no clue of whats going on. Then I go around scrambling to figure out whats going on in the project and scramble some more to ensure that its on track. This when there was no need for me to blabber in the first place.
But my foot in the mouth recently reached a higher level. I had a case of "Foot in the blog mouth". I dont know how else to describe it. Yesterday, as I was writing the post on embarking on the 100 days project, without my knowledge I typed "which will allow me to experiment with different styles of writing". When my brain realised what had been typed it quickly formulated the disclaimer and stuck it alongside the original line. But I had typed something and once the thought of "different styles of writing" crept up my mind it was impossible to repress it and say " I will churn out regular posts for 100 days".
There was a slight problem though. I had no idea what it meant and how to go about doing it.
Few minutes after my post, I was wondering what different styles of writing I was capable of. Well, I thought to myself " I can do movie reviews and book reviews, have never done those before". I was now left with the simple task of figuring out 98 other styles. It then occured to me that I could write for different magazines- different genres of magazines which will ensure that I will be forced to write about topics which I normally dont. I can write columns for Femina, Architecture weekly, homes and interiors, gardening magazines, political magazines, nature& wildlife, food magazines, Psychology, lonely planet, etc. Not only will it force me to expand my horizons of writing , it will also keep my ranting to a minimum as I would pretend I am writing for a magazine.
Of course, none of this precludes fraud. I can clearly see myself writing whatever comes to mind and slotting it into some magazine section. And there is always the option of calling it the column submission for Outlook or Week. Have you seen the irrelevant articles they publish?
One of these days I will make a list of the magazines I definitely want to cover but until then I will post as they come, with a mention of which magazine it is intended for. I am not deluded enough to think that it is worthy of getting published in the magazine, it is merely my attempt at writing for the audience of these. Its just a way of keeping the 100 days project interesting for me with some semblance of a structure instead of random posts being thrown into the universe, all of which can loosely be assembled into one giant post.
As fascinating as this idea is, it comes directly in conflict with a thought I have been having about the blog recently. Unlike business or subject blogs which run purely on content and the greatness of the writing, individuals' blogs need the personal touch. You cant follow some unknown person's blog unless you get some sense of how their lives are. Not every minute details of their lives, but a broad sketch of their life, against which context the readers can understand the blog contents better. Unless their content is so powerful and their writing is so beautiful that you would read them regardless.
So, in the awareness that my writing isnt so fantastic that it will keep the reader hooked, I will make the magazine articles more personal than the ones you see in the actual magazine. I will somehow also try and keep it objective.
Thank you, my dear useless subconscious, for the last paragraph. Now I have to figure out how that needs to be done. Seriously, cant you check with me before just typing stuff?
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