Month: March 2020

Are you feeling lonely?

Neera

In this world full of people, so many of us feel so lonely at times.

The current climate of self-isolation is not helping. We need innovative ways to stay connected. To keep that human connection going is not easy for shy people even at the best of times.

I read two stories last week that might get you thinking about how to combat your loneliness.

The first one is A bird feeder for humans from Austin Kleon’s blog:

A few years ago, after reading in a book that people who feel a strong sense of community have been proven to lead longer and happier lives, Maria Bamford started working to overcome her natural shyness and fear of interaction by saying hello to her neighbors in Eagle Rock, a diverse and partly gentrified area on the northeastern edge of Los Angeles. She bought a park bench and had it installed on the median strip in front of her house. She then spray-stenciled the words “Have a Seat!” on the sidewalk in front of it. To her delight, the bench is often occupied. “It’s like a birdfeeder for humans,” she says.

A 2014 New York Times Megazine Profile
Maria Bamford’s Bench

Two things became obvious from this snippet. One, you need to do some effort on your part to stay connected. And second, innovation goes a long way.

Here is the second story, that illustrates how Elizabeth Gilbert, the writer of Eat Pray and Love feels connected to her houseplant during her self-isolation.

When I got this plant, eight years ago, she was such a tiny thing. My world was a totally different place back then, and so was hers. When she was little, her leaves barely reached out of the pot that she was in – a pot that seemed comically over-large for her at the time. Now she takes up so much space that I have to duck under her great reaching fronds in order to get to my socks out of the drawer beneath her.

How can something become so beautiful, just by staying in one place, surviving only on light and water? How can something that is so still and quiet feel like such an explosion of beauty and energy? I have spent the last eight years running in fast circles around the world – laughing, sobbing, striving, bouncing from drama to drama. All the while she has sat right here with a very different agenda – and looks at what she as become.

Over the last eight years that I have been alone in this house, I have been looking at her a lot. I’ve been listening to her. She has been my friend and my teacher. She has a great sense of humor, She’s really good at being quiet. She is really good at patience and trust. She has all the answers.

Experts say that loneliness is a complex emotional phenomenon that has its bases in survival during childhood. All of us have experienced some degree of abandonment if only for a short time, and remember the painful and scary feeling that goes along with it.

If that is what you are experiencing during self-isolation then it might help to act on some of the suggestions readily available online.

Realize that loneliness is a feeling, not a fact. When you are feeling lonely, it is because something has triggered a memory of that feeling, not because you are in fact, isolated and alone. The brain is designed to pay attention to pain and danger, and that includes painful scary feelings; therefore loneliness gets our attention.

Reach out because loneliness is painful and can confuse you into thinking self-defeating thoughts. Try writing as a means of getting them out of your system. It will help to get active, ring someone and do some small talk, connect with some like-minded people on online forums, read a good book, hang out with someone non-human, do some volunteering and plan at least one social activity a week.

Keep in mind you need to look after yourself before anyone else can look after you.

This world is a beautiful place, you don’t need to keep on staring at ugliness. Look for the beauty around you and focus on that.

Ms Jolly. You will see more of her in future posts.

Photo by Meagan Ranson on Unsplash

Is your self-isolation becoming like groundhog day?

Neera 1 Comment

In the US and Canada, according to a tradition, on February 2nd, when the groundhog emerges from hibernation, if it sees its shadow, it returns to its burrow for six weeks as a sunny day indicates a late spring, while a cloudy day would mean an early spring.

Groundhog day is the same day over and over again.

The term was made famous by the 1993 movie of the same name (Groundhog Day) starring Bill Murray.

In the movie, Bill Murray is a weatherman who gets stuck in a time loop and wakes up every morning on February 2nd – Groundhog Day. He tries everything but he can’t make out of the town or get on to the next day.

No matter what he does, he still wakes up in the same bed every morning to face the same day.

In a moment of despair, he turns to a couple of drunks at a bowling alley bar and askes them, “What would you do if you were stuck in one place, and every day was exactly the same, and nothing that you did mattered?”

Is that how you feel about your days?

You wake up each morning and do the same things over and over again. Nothing seems to progress and you feel like getting stuck in a time loop like the weatherman.

You want to find a way to get out of this loop.

You want to make your day count. You want to be productive. You want your work to matter.

Surprisingly your problem is your answer.

Productive people don’t have a magic wand, they have a routine they strictly follow. Their days are groundhog days. But they use the monotony to accomplish whatever they have set for themselves.

Going to work gives you a routine, that is the reason you are able to achieve more when you get out of your house and go to the workplace where you deliver output.

Working from home takes away that structure.

You need to bring that structure while working from home to be productive. You need to develop a daily routine.

Productive people have a repeatable way of working that insulates them from success, failure, and the chaos of the outside world. They have all identified what they want to spend their time on and they work for it no matter what. Whether their latest thing is universally rejected, ignored, or acclaimed, they know they’ll still get up tomorrow and do their work.

“How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.”

Annie Dillard

We have so little control over our lives. The only thing we can really control is what we spend our days on. What we work on and how hard we work on it.

It might seem like a stretch but the best thing we can do is to make our own version of Groundhog day.

We have no control over tomorrow and yesterday is gone, but today is in our grasp. We can do what we want to do, today.

Richmond Walker wrote in his daily meditation book Twenty-Four Hours a Day, “Any man can fight the battles of just one day… Let us, therefore, do our best to live but one day at a time.”

Photo by Abigail Lynn on Unsplash

At times like these, what can you do?

Neera

We are going through unprecedented times in the history of mankind. Never before the whole world had come to a standstill in a matter of a few weeks. Never before countries have shut down their borders, companies have ordered their employees to work from home, and airlines have grounded their fleet and stood down their workforces.

And this is just a tiny snippet of what is going on.

Thousands of people have died.

Each day the news is more grave, more devastating.

At times like these, the natural tendency is to reach for more news. But is it the best way to face this crisis?

Staying up-to-date with news is a good thing: we need to know the seriousness of the situation and what authorities are asking us to do to limit the spreading of the virus.

But too much news is an invitation to negativity in life.

Negativity breeds more negativity which causes dread, panic, and anger, the very things we need to avoid.

At times like these, we need to be compassionate, understanding, and grateful.

Social distancing and self-isolation have provided a unique opportunity to slow down and reflect. Not the usual kind of slowing down and reflecting we are expected to do with mindfulness training but a deeper kind encompassing the whole humanity.

We are the most resilient species on this planet. We have come out of many crises before. We will come out of this one too.

Yes, this one is not like anyone before.

Yes, the worst hasn’t even arrived yet.

Yes, the economic impact of this pandemic will be more than anyone could imagine at the moment.

But we will come out of it by staying together, looking after each other, helping each other, responding to it like a unit, by fighting it together.

What can a writer do to make a difference?

At times like these, a writer’s job is to spread hope.

You should observe, listen, think and then write. The lesson we learn fighting crises like these must be captured for the next generations.

Write the stories of what is going around you.

Write the stories of people clapping from their balconies to hail our nurses, doctors, and health professionals for the care they are providing to the sick and vulnerable.

Write the stories of people singing to each other across the empty squares, keeping their windows open, so that those who are alone may hear the sound of family around them.

Write the stories of hotels and restaurant owners who are offering free meals and delivery to the housebound and of the young woman who is busy spreading flyers with her phone number through the neighborhood so that the elders may have someone to call on.

Write the stories of churches, synagogues, mosques, and temples are preparing to welcome and shelter the homeless, the sick, the weary.

You should write, and you should write like never before.

You should write letters to your great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren telling them how humanity got together to fight a crisis like never before.

You should tell them how a total stranger in the supermarket gave you the last can of tomatoes.

You should tell them that working from home, you put in extra, extra hours even when no one was counting because you were grateful you still have a job and you want to give more to your employer who is going through a bigger hardship to keep his business afloat.

You write to them that you kept on working even when your employer couldn’t pay you because you thought that is the best use of your time and it might help your employer to save the business.

That you learned to live with less, learned to spend more time at home, learned to waste less.

You should write from the heart. So when your great-grandchildren ask you what did you do when the crisis hit, you can tell them that you. spread hope.

Photo by Kinga Cichewicz on Unsplash

Why writers write, even when they can’t make a living out of it

Neera

Patti Miller’s article in last weekend’s The Sydney Morning Herald is depressing. Although nothing she says is new, most writers are already painfully aware that they can’t make a living from their writing and hence they need to look at other means in order to survive, she fails to give hope to new writers.

In her article, The writer’s life: belly dancing to make a living, Patti lists the paid jobs she did since she left school in order to support herself while writing. The list is exhaustive – nanny/ house slave, waitress, housemaid, nurse-aide, artist model, women’s center organizer, arts event organizer, university lecturer, TAFE teacher, writing workshop tutor, manuscript mentor, and editor.

She surveyed more than 50 well-known published writers and found that all of them, at various times, had to supplement their income from other sources.

She then raises the obvious question.

If writers cannot earn a living from writing then why they are doing it.

A fair question. An important one too.

But she fails to satisfactorily answer it. At least not to my satisfaction.

Earning money is not the sole purpose of choosing a profession. There are many professions other than writing where the money is not good but people still choose them. All the artists and academics fall into this category, so do the people working in the emergency and health services.

There are many reasons, why writers write.

I am reading a book by Meredith Maran, Why We Write, where the author has interviewed twenty writers, a mix of genders, genres, ethnicities, and ages, and asked them the same question.

Their responses are impressive at the least and touching at the most.

Terry Tempest William gives his reasons as “I write to make peace with the things I cannot control. I write to create fabric in a world that often appears black and white. I write to discover. I write to uncover. I write to meet my ghosts. I write to begin a dialogue. I write to imagine things differently and in imagining things differently perhaps the world will change.”

Armistead Maupin wrote, “I write to explain myself to myself. It’s a way of processing my disasters, sorting out the messiness of life to land symmetry and meaning to it… Sometimes I write to explain myself to others. Thirty-forty years ago I told my folks I was a gay through the Tales of the City character Michael Molliver.”

Mary Kerr writes, to connect with other human beings; to record; to clarify; to visit dead. “I have a primitive need to leave a mark on the world.”

Kathryn Harrison said, “I write because it’s the only thing I know that offers the hope of proving myself worthy of love… I write, also, because it’s the apparatus I have for explaining the world around me, seemingly the only method that works.”

David Baldacci goes to the extreme, “If writing were illegal, I’d be in prison. I can’t write. It is a compulsion.”

Writing is a compulsion too for Gish Jen. She goes on to say, “Writing is part and parcel of how I am in the world. Eating, sleeping, writing: they all go together. I don’t think about why I am writing any more than I think about why I’m breathing. Its absence is bad, just as not breathing would be bad.”

George Orwell wrote a whole book “Why I Write” to explain why he writes. He gave four reasons which pretty much encapsulates everyone else’s reasons too:

  1. Sheer egoism. “To be talked about, to be remembered after death, to get your own back on grown-ups, etc.”
  2. Aesthetic enthusiasm. “To take pleasure in the impact of one sound on another, in the firmness of good prose or the rhythm of a good story.”
  3. Historical impulse. “The desire to see things as they are, to find out true facts and store them up for the use of posterity.”
  4. Political purposes. “The opinion that art should have nothing to do with politics is itself is a political attitude.”

But I think for many of us writing is a vocation, a calling, a life’s work.

And when you start pursuing your calling, it is not easy. It is rich and fulfilling but not easy.

Your life’s work causes you more pain than ease, but it is worth it.

It provides you with a purpose, an opportunity to make a difference, a legacy to leave behind.

We write because every one of us is searching for a purpose in our lives. A purpose that is beyond material success. A purpose that could justify our existence in this world. Writing provides that purpose.

It allows us to make a difference, a real difference in our lives and in the lives of other people.

Think about it, how much other people’s writing has helped you understand life, show you the way, guide you out of misery and help you become a better person. This is what you are trying to do with your writing – help others.

Your words can make things easier for someone else is big enough a reason to continue to write.

That is the reason the writers will continue to write even if they are not able to make a living out of it.

Photo by Tyler Nix on Unsplash

5 Benefits of writing by hand

Neera

If you are in the same age group as me, then the chances are you have ditched writing by hand in favor of typing. And if you are a millennial, even greater chances are that you have never written by hand since you left school. But if writing is your vocation then you should seriously consider writing your first drafts by hand.

Even then some people can’t resist the invitation of a blank notebook and a fancy pen and I am one of them. To me a pen and paper are magical. Give them to me any time and I will be lost for hours.

Each morning, I get up, brush my teeth and settle down to write. Of course with my favorite Uniball pen and my daily diary with lovely botanic print. I have a rule – not to reach for any digital device until I have written three pages.

Of course, I developed this habit from Julia Cameron’s classic book The Artist’s Way where she recommends writing three pages in longhand. “Pages are meant to be,” she says, “simply, the act of moving the hand across the page and writing down whatever comes to mind.”

I found writing by hand a great way to access anecdotes and information from my subconscious. The things that surface, sometimes my conscious brain is not even aware of them.

Here are five proven benefits of writing by hand.

1. It helps access long-stored memories

There seems to be some special connection between the act of writing by hand and the memory vaults of our brains. Moving one’s hand across the page seems to open multiple locks at the same time.

Sometimes my hand can’t move fast enough to capture all stories that keep pouring out. Then it doesn’t matter how I capture them – whether in fragmented sentences, incorrect spelling, or unfitting words – as long as I capture write them. Because if I don’t, they will get locked up again.

2. It enhances mindfulness and creativity

According to a study performed at Indiana University, the mere act of writing by hand unleashes creativity not easily accessed in any other way. A high-tech magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) shows that writing by hand increases neural activity in certain sections of the brain, much like meditation.

“This is perhaps the true magic of a pen,” writes Nancy Olson in Forbes, “it transports us to unexpected places, on wings that require no more than a timely shot of ink to keep them aloft, destination unknown. And in the process, the mindfulness writing engenders encourages calm and creativity.”

3. It results in better composition

Research reveals that students who write essays with a pen write more than those that used a keyboard; they also wrote faster and in more complete sentences.

4. It prevents distractions

Working at the computer is full of distractions. The easy access to the internet, email and pop-ups keep tempting you to stop mid-sentence and do a little check. Half-an-hour later when you get back to finish that sentence, the train of thought is gone. But when there is only a pen and paper is in front of you, you tend to go deep inside, and what surfaces even surprises you.

5. It helps retain information better

In the process of writing, a particular area of ​​the brain is used, the so-called reticular activating system (RAS). It acts as a filter – it blocks the processing of extraneous information. By drawing letters with a pen or pencil on paper, we better concentrate and force the brain to consider what we write carefully. Virginia Berninger, a psychologist at the University of Washington, explains the differences between the pen and the keyboard: “You make more movements because each letter has its own set of elements, and working on a computer is monotonous – you only need to press a key each time.”

When you write things out, you create spatial relations between each bit of information you’re recording. Handwriting activates parts of your brain involved in thinking and working memory, and allows you to store and manage information. The movement associated with the pen and your hand can help you encode and retain information long-term.

The Benefits of Handwriting vs. Typing 

Many people get frustrated by the slowness of writing by hand and reach straight for the computer. Typing might seem a fast way to put words out there and spell-check and in-built thesaurus provides additional support in polishing your work but they take away the trance-like state you enter into when you are writing by hand.

But that is where the real writing comes from – from your subconscious.

Think of writing by hand as meditation. Your writing may not sound spiritual or even meditative but it is a valid form of meditation that helps you move from fast to slow, from shallow to deep, and from the logical brain to an artist’s brain. It gives you insights you never would have reached with your conscious brain.

Give it a go.

Not just give it a go, build a solid habit of writing by hand.

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Turning a blog into a book

Neera 2 Comments

Earlier this week I disappointed Life Story Blogging participants ( a three-month course I am conducting at the University of Third Age ) when I told them that publishers won’t accept their content for a book when it is already published on a blog. It won’t be considered as ‘fresh’ or ‘unpublished work, which is what most of the publishers are looking for when they select a manuscript.

But then there are so many writers who are publishing books based on their blogs. Some books came into being only because the blogs became immensely famous. Books like Julie and Julia and The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck come to mind.

Blogging has changed the writing industry forever.

The Internet allows anyone with a computer and an internet connection to be an author. Thousands of bloggers around the world are writing their thoughts and experiences and sharing them with the world through blogs. They do not have to go through the same agony of collecting rejection slips as authors used to do before the age of the internet. Today many writers are earning their living through just blogging.

A lot of effort goes into writing good content for a blog.

Your effort doesn’t have to go wasted. Your blog is a repository of the work you did for years and chances are not all the people have read all your work. You can turn it into a book. It has been proven over time, that it doesn’t matter how easy it is to read on screen, people like the convenience and condenseness of a book.

You can select a theme from your blog and turn the relevant articles into a book.

I have several themes going on in my blog which is just eighteen months old. I have been diligently saving my articles into relevant categories. If I continue to build them the way I have so far, in not so distant future, I will have enough material for three or four books.

Alternatively, you can turn the whole blog into a book in its entirety.

That is what I intend to do with the blog I have started with my Life Story Blogging course participants to write stories from my early life. At some point, I intend to turn that whole blog into a book.

Why should you turn your blog into a book?

Because you should be paid for your work.

The internet has conditioned us to expect everything for free. Remember the days when you used to buy newspapers, magazines, and books. Now everyone expects to read them for free. That is the reason so many writers continue to provide good stuff for free. But the good stuff should never be for free.

Self-publishing is the way to get paid for your work.

There are several tools available that can turn your blog into books

As I was researching it, a very timely article popped up in my inbox by Desiree Johnson, a content specialist for Bluehost (the hosting service I use for my website), listing a number of tools that can turn your blog into a book.

Here they are, as summarised by Desiree Johnson:

Into Real Pages is the easiest tool that allows you to import your blog directly to their website and create a book out of it. You can choose which type of book you want to produce. You can customize your cover and further customize your content after it has been uploaded. Prices start at $26.50 for a softcover book with forty pages.

PixxiBook provides a similar service with support for a wider range of hosting services including Tumblr, WordPress, Blogger, Squarespace and Wix. However, it doesn’t allow you to customize your content and cover after it has been uploaded. Their pricing starts at $40.00 for fifty pages.

BlookUp offers one of the most versatile services in terms of which content can be imported and made into a book. They support blogging standards upheld by Tumblr, WordPress, and Blogger, and they also support creating books from your Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter content. Like PixxiBook, BlookUp only produces hardcover books. You can customize your cover, similar to both Into Real Pages and PixxiBook. Books created from blogs via BlookUp start at $25.00 for one hundred pages.

Into Real Pages, PixxiBook, and BlookUp all specialize in single books.

If you are looking for self-publishing your book and need multiple copies you need to look at different tools.

BlogBooker lets you import your blog, much like Into Real Pages, PixxiBook, or BlookUp, but instead of a printed book, you receive a book-format PDF. They allow you to import content from Tumblr, WordPress, Blogger, LiveJournal, Ghost, Medium, TypePad, and Twitter. Pricing starts at $18.90 for four unlimited-length BlogBooks.

48 Hour Books prints books in bulk. While you cannot import your blog directly to 48 Hour Books, you can import a PDF. 48 Hour Books provides an enormous amount of options that extend well beyond paperback versus hardback. Pricing starts at $13.70 per book for basic paperbacks of fifty pages, and there is a minimum order of ten books. You can also purchase an ISBN and barcode from 48 Hour Books for $125.00 each (paperback, hardback, ePub, etc.).

BookBaby is a managed service that offers whatever you might need to become a published author. Their services include (but are not limited to) editing, professional cover design, ISBN’s and barcodes, and even Facebook and Instagram Ads optimized for authors. BookBaby provides all these services and more in a package called “Complete Self-Publishing Package.” This services package contains everything you will need to do if you decide to self-publish including twenty-five custom-printed books, direct-to-reader sales, and worldwide distribution. Pricing for BookBaby’s Complete Self-Publishing Package starts at $1,699.00 (keep in mind that all prices are in US dollars).

Here you go, something to keep in mind when you are ready to publish your work. Keep in mind you need to proofread your final version before turning it into a printed version. It might be a good idea to engage a professional proofreader if you intend to sell it.

Whether you are looking to turn your blog into a book for a coffee table conversation piece or as a record for your family history or you want to become the next bestselling author there are tremendous resources readily available to do just that.

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