What a rewarding session we had with Nandita Basu! At workshops like this one, I think I learn as much as the young writers who sign up.Step by step, Nandita led us through the creation of one page of narrative that brings together text and illustration in the style of a graphic novel. We launched straight into the workshop with an interesting prompt that made all of us think. We've all wronged someone at some point in our lives; there's been a time when we were needlessly nasty to someone who didn't deserve it. This formed the basis of the plot we went on to sketch over the next hour.Layouts, structure, characters, setting, conflict, emotion ... in a single hour, Nandita led us through the whole lot. How important is background when setting the context of our story? Is it all right to make stick figures rather than fully detailed characters? How large or small should the … [Read more...]
Green Stuff and Nonsense
What a fun session we had on green writing with Bijal Vachharajani! In a single hour, we spoke of a million creatures from elephants to frogs, ferrets to spiders, lion-tailed macaques to slugs that aren't slugs.Bijal's workshop was a guest session at my writing programme. We've just reached the end of our poetry module, so it was the perfect time to invite a guest to do a workshop for us, and I thought of Bijal because the Art is Everywhere series - which Bijal has co-authored - is one of my favourite sets of rhyming verse. I loved how she led us through the workshop yesterday, beginning with a free writing exercise for us to shed our inhibitions and get writing and then moving on to more structured writing.In the central element of the workshop, Bijal showed us seven images (all taken by one of her co-authors Radha Rangarajan), and asked us to write two lines of poetry about … [Read more...]
Art Workshop with Kripa
Each time a new writing programme begins, I feel it whizzes by. Twelve weeks are nearly over, and here we are, after our last guest session of the programme, an art workshop with art educator and children's illustrator, Kripa. It was such a treat!I've been looking at Kripa's art for a while, and I love it. Her tea journal, her little dough babies, her city sketches ... each picture she shares on social media is stunning. Art and writing go together, no matter how much I may say that I cannot draw at all, and that is why I invited Kripa to conduct an art workshop for us.Watching all the children fill their pages with colour warmed me up. It's a joy to watch them engage in the reflective experience of creating art, and I loved how Kripa guided them through it. The title of the workshop itself is lovely, isn't it? Purple sea and pink sky, Nothing in art is a lie. Kripa began by … [Read more...]
Non-Boring Nonfiction
It is always so rewarding when a guest speaker repeats something you've been saying at your writing programmes for a long time! Thank you, Vaishali, for this session on non-boring nonfiction, and for reiterating so many things that keep needing to be said!In November last year, I watched Vaishali Shroff conduct two sessions at Bookaroo Vadodara. One was based on Sita's Chitwan; the other on Batata, Pao and All Things Portuguese. Right away, I was sure she would be the perfect person to do a nonfiction workshop with the children at my writing programmes. Unfortunately, working something out right away was impossible, but after much juggling of schedules, we finally managed to do it this time.Step by step, Vaishali took us through the writing of engaging nonfiction. With an exercise inspired by something as simple as the picture of a mango, she helped the young writers understand … [Read more...]
Poetry in Collaboration with Sampurna Chattarji
My first guest session of the season - Poetry in Collaboration - was such a success! With sixteen enthusiastic participants and one lively, energetic facilitator, the hour flew by before we knew it. Haiku, renga, nonets, free verse--we explored it all.Often, we believe that writing must be a solo activity. We have creative thoughts and ideas, and we want to have full control over them. However, collaboration can lead to unexpected, sometimes beautiful, consequences. Sampurna is a serial collaborator, as she describes herself, and the stories she shared about her collaborative writing experiences were lovely. Step by step, she led the participants through their own work. How does one begin? What methods can we follow? How do we go on, while being mindful of our own creative impulses as well as those of our partner's?In a whirlwind of a workshop, Sampurna visiting one breakout room … [Read more...]
Writing Poetry
I've been conducting writing workshops for a long time, and if there's one thing I love working with, it's poetry. Nearly every writing programme I conduct begins with a poetry module. Why? Because it's accessible. It's far easier to write a poem in a week than it is to write a story in a week.And so, each time, I try to work with different kinds of poetry. We've done list poems and narrative verse, limericks, rhymes, poems with strong verbs, and much, much more. Everything serves as a poetry prompt for me, and I think it can work for anyone!For instance, what we read always helps us to get creative, and so, my reading programmes too have an element of poetry sometimes. Here's a brief look some of the kinds of poetry we've explored recently.CinquainsThe first poem below is a cinquain, which the children wrote when we read I Survived: The California Wildfires, 2018. … [Read more...]
Building Dramatic Characters
What fun we had at 'Building Dramatic Characters' - a guest session conducted by Neha Singh for my creative writing programme!To quote Neha, anything can be a character. Maybe even a chair talking to the moon! The strength of a character simply depends on how much you have invested in the character to make it full-fledged and believable.Step by step, she led us through the process of creating dramatic characters of our own, and before we were even halfway through, here are the characters we met:Bland - a lonely blade of grass Orange - a carrot with no friendsSlippmery Slippers - an unwanted pair of slippers Mr Squeak - a mouse who loves to build thingsMadame Gabriella the Fifth - the poltergeist who simply cannot do something mischievousGray - a sidewalk that's about to be dug upAlexandra or Alex - half a personality in search of a human homeSix-Face - a Rubik's cube whose … [Read more...]
Demystifying Publishing
One of the best things about my creative writing programmes is how much I learn on the way. For one, before each class, I research for hours. One hour of class time typically requires at least four hours of research.And for another, I invite guests to talk about a variety of subjects from science fiction to cyber crime, historical fiction to comics.Our latest guest was Andaleeb Wajid, a hybrid author who has published 37 novels in the last twelve years! Since so many parents and children have questions about Kindle Direct Publishing and whether they should publish their children's work at all, Andaleeb was the ideal guest. Step by step, she took us through the process of publishing, comparing traditional publishing with KDP, with complete frankness when it came to costs, timelines and control.For the most part, we followed a Q and A pattern for the session. Here are two answers … [Read more...]
The Editor’s Perspective
The last guest session at this edition of my creative writing programme was with Daphne Lee, consulting editor at Scholastic Asia. It was everything I expected it to be - informative, detailed, and full of laughter. She answered questions, told us about the publishing process, and shared a manuscript with us, detailing how the editing process works. It was fascinating to see how the book took shape!Here are a few of the questions I asked and the responses we received.Varsha:How do you decide whether to publish a book?Daphne: It's hard to say. Voice is key. Things like grammar and spelling mistakes matter less. To me, even plot does not matter as much as voice. Thoughts and ideas draw me in. Varsha: While I understand that typos and grammar may not be the only things that are crucial, what do you feel about shoddily edited work? Work that seems carelessly … [Read more...]
The Art of Zines
We just had another rewarding guest session! Niloufer Wadia, an illustrator and Urban Sketcher, covered so much ground in one short hour with my creative writing programme - you can guess what I mean from the picture above! From showing us different kinds of zines to telling us about storyboarding, she led us through the process of illustrating our works, choosing what to draw and helping us understand how to draw it.The zines Niloufer showed us to begin with were lovely. Even though we're going to be creating an e-zine at my writing programme, exploring form and shape was fun! Moving towards helping us sketch on our own, she shared some limericks with us and then proceeded to show us how we could illustrate them. She began with a storyboard with very basic line drawings, and together, we came up with ideas of how to illustrate the set of limericks she chose.I also love it when … [Read more...]