I ask this question(in the topic) to myself. I have been doing quite a lot of writing lately (last week, it was 14, 303 words of purely work-related writing in Google docs), but most of it is work related, and not at all creative. I am pretty sure rewriting stories like "Baglung parents proud of their kids" are not going to help me in anything. I suspect that instead, they are stunting my creativity.
Of late, I have started treating writing more as work than something I enjoy doing. Because of that, it seems my plan for the novel is going to to be delayed indefinitely, even though now I have ever more ideas and plots for stories. Not only that, my writing here has been less of what I really want to do( Joel Stein, Dave Barry, et al.) and more of a 'A boring Treatise on the very uninteresting objects, which I am writing because I know I have to write, and have nothing better to do' kind. I feel I will get rid of this only after I leave the Post, so there's yet another reason for me to leave the paper.
My travel plans, which I had hoped to be fabulous have not been as great as I had hoped they would be, but they have been pretty good. I have traveled most of western Nepal with baba now, and I think I will be going to other places with the guys sometime next year. Also, there's some possibility I might out of the country, but it's all in planning, so that probably means nothing...
I do love watching the films and writing reviews all the time, but it seems that Am is coming back to the reviews, so I have to leave even that. My reviews(or anyone else's, for that matter) are not very read here anyways, so I don't mind losing the readership(because there is none). What I will miss is going to the movies every Friday, and thanks to the time difference, being one of the first of general public to watch newly-released hindi movies in the world. Thanks to the same phenomena, I have watched some English movies actually earlier than they premiere in the US! Fun! But no more...
The point of this entire thing is, I am seriously considering leaving the Post sometime soon.
Writing for fun--5
He could not describe his feelings in words. Actually, he could, but ‘words’ would have no meaning in the place he was in (or on?) They would exist only inside his head; they would not be received even when he spoke. It was like the classic philosophical question: does a falling tree in the forest make sound if there is no one to listen to it? He had the correct answer: probably not, and even if it did, it would make no difference; so for all intents and purposes, it did not make sound. He was thinking and speaking, but without anyone to even receive his messages, he could as well be a stone.
He was far too stressed out to realize that stones were conscious organisms themselves. They had tried all sorts to communicate with humans using every mode of communication available to them, but the humans wouldn’t just get them. Their signals were sometimes mistaken for background radiation from the big band, sometimes as solar magnetic activities, and sometimes as random error in instruments.
As the human lay there, Zorborkh detected a slight variation in low-frequency mechanical vibrations. He wished the scientists would someday invent detectors to entirely remove random fluctuations in detectors, and just show the real change in the variables being measured. Meanwhile the human was making noises loud enough to deafen an earth Elephant.
Writing for fun--4
The plane was going through some turbulence, but that was only to be expected. That region had always been windy anyway, and it had also been raining heavily the previous day. The passengers were as unconcerned as anyone in a plane could be. The airhostesses were getting nervous, and the cabin crew was strutting around uncomfortably, checking with the pilots if everything was okay, or if they should make an emergency landing. The pilots themselves were not sure—half of them were from a country very far away—but they assured the crew that everything was okay
The plane was ahead of a smaller plane by five minutes. The two aircrafts were going together to a foreign country to get some work done (it is not clear if they were going to get work done for their country, or the one they were going to). The passengers in the bigger plane were considered more important that those in the smaller one, so they had been instructed in detail about flight plan and emergency contingency.
The bigger plane hit a mountain-top shrouded by fog and lost an engine. Miraculously, it rose up, and continued its predestined path. Then, the pilots overcompensated for the missing engine, and the aircraft hit yet another mountain. Two hits within ten minutes were too much even for the hardy and well-tested machine and it gave away, killing all the 118 passengers and 41 flight crew onboard. The second plane, with the journalists, security officers and the bureaucrats, completed the flight without any sort of disturbance.
The entire cabinet, including the PM, was dead. The sixty topmost leaders of the 3 big parties were dead, along with few leaders of the minor fractions. There was no way the nation would ever recover the loss of leadership. Despite all the squabbles they had or pretended to have with each other, those bastards ultimately shared the same grave. The nation and its peoples grieved less than they should have.
Writing for fun--3
I trust him more than anything. We have been friends since we were little kids, and I have asked his advice in every big decision of my life. For tomorrow’s event, I am wearing a gray-blue denim skirt that just covers my knees and a matching top he had gifted me once. I have been told that the dress in unsuitable, but I will do what I want to. Only if it is absolutely necessary will I wear what they want me to wear.
As usual, he will probably wear nothing flashy or gaudy. I really want to wear that top to show that I still care for him and love him, but I am afraid they won’t let me do it. I am not even sure they would not even give him a good seat if it weren’t for me. God, I love him so much!
She is one of the most talented and accomplished women our nation has ever seen, but sometimes she acts like a child. For example, she wanted to wear a denim skirt and some hippie t-shirt during the ceremony. She also wanted her ‘old-friend’ to be able to see her, live. I understand her emotions, but wouldn’t it look bad for an inaugurating President of The United States to take oath in skirt, and one of the highest-security Alcatraz prisoners to be invited into the ceremony and be given VIP seat?
Writing for fun--2
She did not want to go with me. I had to plead, coax, blackmail, and finally beg her to come along. She believed that she would hate it at the party, but after two hours of meeting old friends and dancing with strangers, she was enjoying it a lot more than I was. I would have been jealous of her.
Had she not died that very day due to ‘concussion on the head caused most probably due to falling down and accidently hitting the sharp edge of the stairs’.
It was sad that she died in her wedding party.
Writing for fun--1
This is going to be a short series of my very short writings... I will not name the individual pieces.
Someone has got to pay for all this wrongdoing. We deserve better than this. We have special protection rights, and the usual equality rights, so no one should be able to get through the mesh of law to us.
Thought the thoughtful little fly, sitting on the Samosa I was eating. I attacked it with the fly swatter, and threw its remains along with the Samosa it was on into the dustbin. The poor bastard was dead as a dodo.
Media in Nepal: The right, the wrong, and the messed-up--V
continuation of the series of post on the situation of Nepali media
The Supplement Addition-II
Thankfully, for the readers, the onslaughts stopped. The old TKP went to republica, and CityPost was merged with the main paper as the new team realised there simply was not enough content to fill in the pages.]
The Age of Real Supplements
True competition among the english papers started after Republica started printing. Whereas TKP had had no serious direct competition, Republica rose as a formidable opponent who could take away the readers as well as the advertisers. Those at Republica realised too that simply being a new newspaper was not going to get them readers and advertisers; something new had to be done. So, almost simultaneously, the two papers decided to bring a full-issue weekly supplement heavy on articles, like the NYtimes' Sunday Times. And thus began the age of The Week and On Saturday.
The two supplements mark perhaps the greatest height of English print journalism in Nepal. Despite some minor lapses, both of the papers have maintained a remarkable standards in the quality of write-ups and photographs to be included in the supplements. The Week, which comes out every week, has tried to wade into fashion among urban youths, high-brow photography to neo-natal maternal health care whereas On Saturday has published several exclusive excerpts from recently published books, done a series on eco-friendly lifestyle in Kathmandu, arts, and so much more. Despite getting complaints from some readers that the pieces on the supplements are 'too long', the papers have received considerable good critical response.
Unfortunately, the supplements have apparently failed to gain mass appeal. I know as a fact that On Saturday has not been a marketing coup it was supposed to be, and the management has decided to give the team a year's trial to prove themselves. From what I hear, news at The Week is not so good either: because of all the negative comments that were received from readers complaining about the 'weird' articles published, the team has been making the issue look more and more like the usual one.
I would give them at least one more year to see where it goes, and I hope for the best, but I fear things might not go where I wish they did.
This is the last post of THE SUPPLEMENT ADDITION sub-series. Until now, I have covered only the English print media, but from now onwards I will probably look towards the Nepali media too. Media in Nepal: The right, the wrong, and the messed-up series continues.
The Supplement Addition-II
Thankfully, for the readers, the onslaughts stopped. The old TKP went to republica, and CityPost was merged with the main paper as the new team realised there simply was not enough content to fill in the pages.]
The Age of Real Supplements
True competition among the english papers started after Republica started printing. Whereas TKP had had no serious direct competition, Republica rose as a formidable opponent who could take away the readers as well as the advertisers. Those at Republica realised too that simply being a new newspaper was not going to get them readers and advertisers; something new had to be done. So, almost simultaneously, the two papers decided to bring a full-issue weekly supplement heavy on articles, like the NYtimes' Sunday Times. And thus began the age of The Week and On Saturday.
The two supplements mark perhaps the greatest height of English print journalism in Nepal. Despite some minor lapses, both of the papers have maintained a remarkable standards in the quality of write-ups and photographs to be included in the supplements. The Week, which comes out every week, has tried to wade into fashion among urban youths, high-brow photography to neo-natal maternal health care whereas On Saturday has published several exclusive excerpts from recently published books, done a series on eco-friendly lifestyle in Kathmandu, arts, and so much more. Despite getting complaints from some readers that the pieces on the supplements are 'too long', the papers have received considerable good critical response.
Unfortunately, the supplements have apparently failed to gain mass appeal. I know as a fact that On Saturday has not been a marketing coup it was supposed to be, and the management has decided to give the team a year's trial to prove themselves. From what I hear, news at The Week is not so good either: because of all the negative comments that were received from readers complaining about the 'weird' articles published, the team has been making the issue look more and more like the usual one.
I would give them at least one more year to see where it goes, and I hope for the best, but I fear things might not go where I wish they did.
This is the last post of THE SUPPLEMENT ADDITION sub-series. Until now, I have covered only the English print media, but from now onwards I will probably look towards the Nepali media too. Media in Nepal: The right, the wrong, and the messed-up series continues.
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