How important is punctuation these days? We live in times when text messages have virtually corrupted the English language as we once knew it. People write, “hv” for “have’, “4” instead of “for” and so on. Texting reflects the way we speak rather than the way we write. It pays scarce respect to punctuation making it seem as if punctuation is a relic of the old days. However, I am sure aspiring writers realize that how you punctuate your writing, reflects your capability as a writer and more importantly, makes it easier for the reader to understand what you are trying to communicate. In this context the Top Ten Tips from The Punctuation Guide is a useful tool for aspiring writers who seek to improve upon their skills.
Author: Prem Rao
Author, Blogger, Book Reviewer, Coach, and Podcaster
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2014 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 4,000 times in 2014. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 3 trips to carry that many people.
During the short vacation I enjoyed recently, I completed reading Nim Gholkar’s debut novel, “Unravelling Anjali.” The byline of this book, published by Become Shakespeare in December 2014, is the “Diary of an Immigrant Bride” which is an accurate description of the book. Continue reading ““Unravelling Anjali” by Nim Gholkar”
Many of my social and cultural background in India started reading English books as kids thanks to Enid Blyton. I still have vivid memories of the characters in the Noddy series: apart from Noddy himself, Mr. Plod the Policeman, Big Ears and Tessie Bear though I must read about them over 50 years ago. More recently I enjoyed reading them out to my grandson! Continue reading “Of Childhood and Enid Blyton”
Who doesn’t want to be a better writer? However great you think you are, there’s always scope to improve your writing further. I would like to share a few interesting blog posts full of sensible advice to writers and would be writers:- Read “The One Book That Shines” which details the 5 Characteristics Of A Great Book. The first fact mentioned puts things in perspective. Most literary agents receive 2000 or more submissions every year and only 1 % of the agent’s “slush pile” is rewarded with an offer of representation. Also that publishing is a business like any other where the owner of the publishing firm wishes to see fair return on his investment. Keep these two points in mind whenever you sit down to write. You cannot afford to forget them.
I am delighted that I successfully completed NaNoWriMo 2014 where the challenge was to write a novel of 50,000 words during the calendar month of November.
” Life In The City” is a collection of short stories, 14 in all, which capture different aspects of life in a city in contemporary India. Since I live in Bengaluru ( recently made the official name for the erstwhile Bangalore) most of my stories tend to be set here. I guess the issues are the same in different cities of India. While the stories are largely a figment of my imagination, I must confess that the inspiration for at least a few of them came from real life incidents as reported in the daily newspapers.
The stories feature a wide variety of characters and situations which I hope most readers will be able to easily relate to. They involve, amongst others, an elderly woman who gets a fresh lease of life; a bored housewife caught up, thanks to her addiction for the internet, in a net of deceit; and, a couple who settle down in Bengaluru to come across ghosts from the past.
This is now work in progress and I hope to share more details of this project with time.
As mentioned in many posts in this blog, November finds me busy with NaNoWriMo, the National Novel Writing Month, an international event in which we aim to write a novel of 50,000 words in the calendar month of November. The rules permit the writing of short stories too as long as the collection has a common theme. This year, like in 2012 when I did an anthology of short stories called, “A Bouquet From India”, I have embarked on writing a collection of short stories once again.
The common theme is that they are all set in the cities of India, a land I know best having lived in different parts of this vast country, all my life. It was natural then for me to select, ” Life In the City” as the title for this year’s effort. Continue reading ““Life In The City””
Yes, it’s that time of the year again. November, for me, and for thousands like me from all over the world who love writing, means it time for the National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo,) Some one once asked me in an interview, “When do you write?” She meant to ask whether I wrote in the mornings or in the evenings and did I have a preferred time slot for writing. I replied, ” In November!” with all seriousness. Strange as it may seem, for the last few years , ever since I became a full-time writer, virtually all my writing has taken place in November of each year. Here’s where you can order all my books. Continue reading “It’s That Time Of The Year Again: NaNoWriMo is on.”
Janet Reid needs no introduction to writers and would be writers, does she? She’s a literary agent with FinePrint Literary Management and her blog must be one of the most widely read of them all. I happened to see a contest that’s playing out there a short while ago. The task is to tell a story in 100 words or less, using five words selected by her.
The five words are: ” oil”, “boom”, “mother”, “ice” and “shower.”
This was my first shot at an exercise of this kind. I decided to give it a go.
As required, we pasted our “stories” as comments under the blog post in question. You can see my effort along with those by many others.
It doesn’t matter whether you win something or not, it’s an interesting experience and I look forward to taking part in more such contests if I come across them.
As a writer, it underscores to me the maxim that, ‘Every Word Counts.”
Try it for yourself. It is fun, isn’t it?
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In this blog, I try to share posts and articles I found interesting. They relate to the writing process, the lives of writers and the business of books. They say that the opening sentence is one of the most important parts of a book. Legend has it that famous authors have spent months sharpening that one sentence to perfection. The Guardian has this wonderful collection titled, ” The 10 best first lines in fiction.” You might or might not agree that these are the 10 best, but they do make good reading. Mark the variety of these opening lines which underlies the point that there is no one way to score an ace. Continue reading “Opening Sentences in Fiction”
