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Category: Now in Print
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My latest piece in Time:
http://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/article/0,28804,1642444_1867336_1867335,00.html
Archive for ◊ 2008 ◊
14
Dec
2008
The Last Update of the Season
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Category: Life, Love, Writing
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I’m on holiday from tomorrow , so posts are going to be erratic until the new year. A few things I want to mention:
* The puppy found a home! Thanks to everyone who sent me e-mails, links and contacts. A special shout-out to fellow journalist Ms. B. Sen for going that extra mile. You rock!
* I’m skipping my usual what-I-achieved-this-year post. I have certainly achieved a lot this year, including one of my lifetime goals of getting published in Time magazine (next piece out in less than a week). I lived in Africa, I’m living in America, I interviewed some amazing people, I worked with some of the best journalists in the business, and I learned the most important thing of all: I am capable. Both personally and professionally, this year has been amazing. I have been blessed with a lot of good things this year, but making a list of them this time around seems inappropriate.
*That said, this year has been the most difficult year in my entire adult life financially. Even though I’ve come dangerously close to giving up and getting a job, I know that doing so would be putting myself at odds with who I truly am. I don’t mention my financial troubles to further depress the already depressed, but to tell you that the fluctuations are a part of this career, and you need to be able to deal with them. No matter how successful you get and no matter how many credits follow your name, you are always prone to changes in the market. Enjoy your success, but don’t get too attached to it. A freelancer is always one bankrupt client away from financial woes.
* When I was about ten years old, I had a cousin who I really admired. I never really got to know her, but to my ten-year-old mind, she was what I wanted to be at age twenty-six. Confident, independent, successful. As I went through life, I faced many challenges, but a cycle of depression was possibly the biggest one. That number– twenty-six– stuck in my mind. That was going to be my peak year. The best year of my life. The year in which it would all come together. The months before my twenty-sixth birthday were probably the hardest I’ve been hit with depression in my entire life. When I had all but given up, a writer encouraged me to find strength in words. I started blogging again, I started sharing my honest thoughts with my writer’s group, and they helped me get through it.
I didn’t expect twenty-six to be anything special, let alone the best year in my life, but something happened on my birthday that completely shocked me: I received, suddenly and unexpectedly, my first assignment from Time. What was amazing about this, was that for a month preceding this, on the prodding of a friend, I had taken to writing daily affirmations in my journal. One of my affirmations: “I will get an assignment from Time before my birthday.”
I turn twenty-seven next week. And I can say, without any doubt, that twenty-six has indeed been one of the best years of my life.
Enjoy the holiday season everyone!
11
Dec
2008
TV Stations Face Ire for Coverage of Attacks (The WIP, Dec 08)
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Category: Now in Print
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My latest article:
While the TV channels were busy chasing “exclusives,” no one stopped to question the dangers of revealing the locations of still-trapped hostages or airing information about the captured terrorist and his interrogators. Indeed, in the rush to get the latest scoop, reporters forgot to analyze why, despite their claims that the number of the deceased would double, the figure hardly moved. In proclaiming our commandos as brave heroes, they became biased, incapable of questioning any holes in the operation. In showing Indian flags and pointing fingers towards Pakistan before any proof materialized, they became responsible for influencing public perception.
Read full piece here:
http://thewip.net/contributors/2008/12/in_india_englishlanguage_tv_st.html
P.S. Welcome CGites! Thrilled to have you here.
10
Dec
2008
On English
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Category: Life, Love, Writing
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I just finished an article that, to me, was really hard to write. Even as I wrote, it was not lost on me that to a more experienced journalist, this piece would have taken no more than a day to finish, while I had already gone two days with no end in sight.
But I had to write the piece in several stages: The information dump, the organization, adding the interviews, putting everything in coherent sentences, and finally, writing with an eye towards language.
I had to write to friends with silly questions like, “What’s the word used to describe when something’s characteristic to someone?” (Her answer: “Uh… ‘characteristic’?”)
And that is probably the hardest part for me as a writer competing with native English speakers. I know that even the ones who can’t spell or tell the difference between its and it’s have a competitive advantage over me, because they do not have to pause while the exact word they’re looking for appears in their head in a completely different language.
“How many times a day do I think of the perfect word and not be able to find the English equivalent?” I asked my Finnish friend the other day. “It’s so frustrating!”
He nodded understanding, and then my Burmese friend chimed in and said he faced similar problems, as did the Indonesian.
But then I think of my friend, a Chinese-American actor/writer, who moved to America as an adult, learned English after arriving here, and is now a novelist who writes in the most beautiful English I have ever read. I got to know his work before I got to know him, and I found it hard to believe that he had come to English as an adult.
While I was writing this, I thought of an essay I’d written a couple of years ago, about my relationship with the English language. I wrote,
“The first words and sentences I spoke were not in English. It’s not the language I use to be informal. I don’t use it to communicate with my family or close friends. It’s not the language with which I express love or anger or pain.
“The first word that comes to mind when I want to support the Indian cricket team isn’t in English. The stubbing of my toe brings out obscenities, but not in English. And of all the good jokes I know, most aren’t in English.
…
“I make my living writing in English. When I’m trying to win an argument, I instinctively start talking in English. I lie better in English. I pray in English.”
And so, on I go, spending three days writing where only one was needed, working towards that day when maybe it’ll only take two. Until then, I have a thesaurus.
09
Dec
2008
One Good Critic
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Category: Life, Love, Writing
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I think it’s very necessary as writers, as journalists, or even as novelists, that we have people who can honestly find fault in our arguments and push us to be a little bit better.
I’ve mentioned this before, but I’ll mention it again because I think it’s very important: editors and fact-checkers play an extremely important role in your career. Without mine, I can’t count how many times I would have a made a fool of myself in print. The editors find flaws in my logic, the fact-checkers find flaws in my facts. And without these flaw-finders, you will inevitably make arguments that once printed, will sound hollow to your own ears.
But the economy is shit. Fact-checkers are quickly becoming extinct. Editors are over-burdened and don’t have the time to spend hours arguing with you over what is right and wrong. At a time when information spreads rapidly and it’s of utmost important that you get your stuff right, this is a problem.
Enter: writer’s groups. I belong to three on and off– a fiction list, a critique group, and a board for journalists. Of the three, the most important to me is the critique group.
A good critique group– mine is for my journalism work (and I’m currently inactive)– will help you with your language, your style, and your topic. As an Indian writing for American audiences, there are differences in language and culture that I would never have noticed if it weren’t for my beta readers asking the tough questions.
In the absence of a writer’s group, you need to find a beta reader, who will:
-> Analyze the content of your work. What works, what doesn’t?
-> Analyze the language, point out the spelling mistakes, the grammar flaws, and the inaccuracies in style.
-> Look at the piece from the position of a dispassionate observer.
I also highly recommend critiquing other people’s writing. A lot of what I have learned about good writing has been by evaluating what works and doesn’t work in other people’s prose.
05
Dec
2008
What I’ve Learned
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Category: Life, Love, Writing
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A couple of people in my writer’s group were discussing what they learned about their writing this year. Here’s my list.
- I learned that while non-fiction skills don’t translate to fiction, it’s not rocket science and I’m fully capable of doing it.
- I learned that having learned English in India and as a second language, there will always be differences (and sometimes mistakes) in the way I speak or write in the language, and that’s a strength not a weakness.
- I learned that my best work comes when I let loose and not care about what people will make of it.
- I learned that it’s not the million-dollar words, but the million-dollar thoughts that count.
- I learned that I use way too many commas, and killing one here and there won’t hurt.
- I learned that asking myself to choose between fiction and non-fiction is like asking myself to choose between my parents. Can’t do it.
- I learned that I’m not a writer who writes for the market, and I’m okay with that.
- I learned that despite what “successful writers” say, the market will always support writers who follow a voice and not a market guide.
- I learned that I feel successful not by how much I sell or how much I make, but how much I love the process of writing every time I sit down to do it.
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