Welcome to the first ever Inspiration Circle of 2017! As you might know, January was an average writing month for me but a good reading one. To make sure February is better, here is a little motivation for myself as well as any of you readers who might need it. It’s going to be shorter than the usual ones because I’m typing this in a tearing hurry. (I feel like this is a recurring pattern in January. Hmmm.) Let’s get to the good stuff now.
Remember my writing plan from two weeks ago? (It’s okay if the answer is no, you can check it out here.) I did promise a monthly writing wrap-up along with it, but I decided to add reading to it as well. Since I have a separate book blog, I will mention my reading only briefly here and leave links to my posts on that blog if you want to read further. With that introduction out of the way, let’s check on my progress (or lack of it).
This post was actually supposed to go up last Monday, but I was so busy with the said baking that I did not have time to write the post then. Of course I felt guilty about not posting last week because I broke away from my blogging schedule in the first month of the new year, so here’s my late apology and the post.
I was baking last week for a bake sale that happened in college. It was organised by a college club to raise funds for an event that honours the army martyr families in the state (Link to their Facebook page). This is my second (and final) time baking for this event. It’s a double joy because it’s for a good cause and an excuse to indulge in something fun. I wouldn’t claim to be any sort of expert for my experiments come out well as much as they fail, but my family and friends are kind enough to eat them anyway, which is encouraging. Let’s see what my experiences have taught me.
This is not the original story I had planned. I had written a draft with a complete story titled ‘Resilience’, but the page refreshed and I lost the original. I had hoped that the draft would be saved somewhere, but no such luck. I am disappointed and quite angry, but what good will that do? I couldn’t recreate the story and do justice to the original, so I decided to write a new one. I apologise for the length, but there’s only so much you can write when you’re frustrated.
I do realise it would have been better if I’d posted this on the first Friday of January, but better late than never, right? This will become a regular monthly feature along with a Writing Wrap-up on the last Friday of each month. It may not be all that fun to read (sorry, this was a last-minute post!) but it’s very important to me personally because I procrastinate a lot. And by that I mean, A LOT. I don’t follow schedules or plans even though I have a lot of goals I’d like to achieve and it so happens that I can never accomplish them all.
To fix that, I’m trying to discipline my flighty mind by making plans. Nothing too rigid so I’ll feel suffocated or disinclined to follow, but more like an outline. In the immortal words of Captain Barbossa,
Surplus. Overindulgence. Superabundance. Extravagance. Immoderation. Call it what you will, humans seem to be particularly susceptible to the allure of excess. Perhaps it’s the just all the excess room inside the skull that sets us apart from the other species. Or is it the rules of the society that bestows power on the one who possesses an abundance of whatever is valuable at that particular time in history? Maybe it’s just shameless self-indulgence, a series of biochemical reactions that makes one crave for more.
The last time I posted fiction on this blog was 5 months ago and I still can’t believe it! Writing fiction just for the blog took a backseat during NaNoWriMo but I vowed to continue it, so here I am again with a short story. This qualifies as fanfiction, but I really couldn’t get this out of my head after New Year’s day. I’m talking about (brownie points for getting it right) Sherlock, of course.
The first episode came out on Monday and since then I haven’t stopped thinking about it, or about what the next episodes will showcase. A short story titled Appointment in Samarra is narrated by Benedict Cumberbatch in this episode, with the backdrop of the London Aquarium and sharks reinforcing the nature of the tale. During the episode, however, Mycroft (played by Mark Gatiss) remembers that Sherlock had written his own version of the story as a child for he did not like the original. It seemed like a good challenge to try writing that version of the story, so here is my interpretation of what the young Sherlock might have written (and then some more of my imagination).
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