Love of signs or signs of Love?

DFTP is driving this week's Poetry Bus and has an interesting prompt for us. Roads, signs, imagination and lot more.

And here is my response to get onto the poetry bus. Lets feed the pixies!

A divine angel flew to
no parking any time earth zone
Seeing her descend into the woods
my sharp and subtle senses
evaporated like dew drops under sun
The immense ocean of love asked
my heart to stop there on red
and the speed limit went down to zero
I realised a rail road crossing
had in store for me this day
Hiding from her eyes,
i followed her onto a winding road
and onto a slippery road until she disappeared
and the blissful detour ended abrupt
Dejected from the road closed
I took one way ride for several years
until one day my destiny road narrowed
and i got a ticket to meet her again
We met, we spoke like divided highways
long waited to meet....
Then came a day when divided road ended
and the two lanes merged into a wedlock.

As the World Turns.............

As the world turns, Shilpa is happy for 2 reasons:
1) She is eating, praying and living her dream job.
2)She has completed the first chapter of her novel.

She is completely immersed in the beauty of the city she is working in now. And her protagonist (female) from her novel has also landed a job in a big city and admiring it so far. Although one might think that Shilpa is injecting her identity into the character's identity,  it is not completely true. May be few shades of the character ( Neha Reddy ) are borrowed from the author herself but Neha Reddy has a different persona all together. Drifting from comparisons between Neha Reddy and her author, this novel has an intense plot, a clear picture of circumstances that will shape every day life of Neha. Her struggle to put up with her Love, her Friends, her Family and above all her diminishing Virtues to get that perfect life. A life which seems hopeless once she gets to live it.

Wow...speaking in third person always makes me feel special. Anyways, so that was the extremely skimmed version of my novel. My research for novel is becoming crucial these days. I am studying the character/attitude of every girl/woman i come across with. I am recording my own instincts that generated out of though process on a certain issue. I chose four famous females from four different expertise to extract and refine the qualities onto my protagonist's character. Little did i realise that apart from being an author, i need to be a model, a teacher, a doctor, a mother, a man, a child and  a beggar who day dreams riches, in order to bring life into my characters.

But connecting with my characters is so enthralling that i am developing a  motherly love towards them. For instance I feel so sad whenever i write about the beggar (an important character) because i have to keep him starving and make him feel miserable. But then at the end of the day i realize he is fictional.

An author should definitely bond with his/her characters. She should walk with them, live with them, talk with them and embrace good and bad associated with them. When my characters took life with a medium(pen) that connected my brain and my paper, i felt satiated like a mother did after giving birth to her child. The energy flow from pen to paper was non-stop driven with brain's processes. And with similar experiences for almost a month, i was driven to my goal of finishing the first chapter. And this post is the review of what went behind the scenes and a sneak peak into the story. May be i should post details of every chapter i finish, in future.

And as for the update on my Orbis Terrarum challenge, i am getting absorbed by Afghanistan's  blaze with " A 1000 Splendid Suns". And i also am  living amongst ancient Indian epic characters from Mahabharata with Chitra Divakaruni's "The Palace of Illusions". This book is not my entry in Orbis Terrarum but recommended by a fellow blogger friend. For me Mahabharata has always been an  intense saga which created a curiosity every time i indulged in it. Chitra surely filled that curiosity of mine once again .....

Books for Orbis Terrarum

Here is my list for Orbis Terrarum 2010

1) A 1000 Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini ( Afghanistan)
2) Six Suspects by Vikas Swarup ( India)
3) Metroland  by Julian Barnes (UK)
4) The Help by Kathryn Stockett (USA)
5) Departure Land by Chad Taylor (New Zealand)
6) Heaven's Edge by  Romesh Gunasekera (Sri Lanka)
7) Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (Nigeria)
8) The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho ( Brazil)

These are the books on my list right now. I will update the changes if  i stumble upon and read other books from same countries.

Tip of The Day 1

The whole long weekend for me was filled with Boston, Long drive, Friends and Fun . As much as i loved my weekend escape, i am little guilty about not concentrating on my WIP. And now i am back on track with my novel. Although i missed my writing time past 3 days,  i managed to finish reading the book " The 3 Mistakes of My Life " by Chetan Bhagat, an Indian Writer. 

Chetan's characters are young, ambitious and passionate and have the same moral, social and religious dilemmas as many of the young Indians today. At the same time their context and sensibility too is unabashedly Indian.

You can find more information about Chetan and his works at http://chetanbhagat.com/

Chetan's light weight, vivid story telling in this book extracted few extra hours out of my vacation time. The book indeed was worth it. I am planning to finish other 3 books from the author in near future.

And moving on, I am starting a new post from today. I will be posting " Tip of The Day" for writers frequently. I made this necessary initiative to keep my writing on track without any long breaks. I will be more than happy if these tips helps other writers too. 

Here is the first TIP of The Day from Paul Raymond Martin:

" I used to preach that a writer must be disciplined. Seat of the pants to seat of the chair. Write every day. Blah, blah, blah. I no longer believe that.

Writing is a matter of desire, not discipline. If you want to write, that's what you'll do. If you want to write you'll rearrange the circumstances of your life to make it possible.

If you want to write, you can't not write! "

So friends, did you read any interesting book over the long weekend. Do you have any writing tips ? 

Share your thoughts!!!