At a Writing Workshop

At a Writing Workshop

Those who want to write or want to be known as writers are usually dogged by a minimum of two questions- What to write? How to write? Most of them know the answer to the former question. They want to write novels, short stories or magazine articles. But is the latter question that stumps them because they cannot find ready made answers for it. So they begin searching for the answer. Their search leads them on a quest for either something or someone to tell them how to write. The easiest way, they’ll discover eventually, to find the answer is to read books on writing.

In my personal experience, reading books on writing is one of the best ways to learn how to write. But it all depends on finding the right books. One can spend years, like I did, wading through scores of books before finding the right books that will tell you exactly what you need to know. But once you find the right books you are on your way to learning to write or become a better writer. Each book has only a few things to teach so it will take a long time to learn all the basics of writing. But there is a short cut, if you can call it one. An experienced writer sometimes shortens the process of learning by imparting a few important lessons of writing. Some of them give an insight into the writing process that is invaluable. One good way of meeting writers is attending book readings and launches where the writer inevitably talks about how she or he came to write the book and so on. Another good way of learning from experienced writers is at writing workshops.

After reading several books on writing, doing a correspondence course in creative writing, attending scores of book readings and launches the only thing left for me to do was to attend a writing workshop. Until recently I had dreamt of doing a couple of week-long writing workshops at the Summer Writing School at Iowa University. But now I feel it is rather too late for me to do a writing workshop. Even if I want to, I cannot because it is prohibitively expensive. My only wish was that someone would organize a writing workshop somewhere in the country if not in Hyderabad.


Last week, surprisingly, I read about a creative writing workshop being held in Hyderabad. After a lot of hesitation I finally registered along with Uma. So last Sunday I happened to be a participant at the one-day writing workshop on creative writing organized by Livemore. One reason I decided to go was that the popular blogger and author of ‘Chai Chai,’ Biswanath Ghosh would be one of the two presenters at the workshop. The other presenter was Raksha Bharadia.

The venue of the workshop was at the Fortune Select Manohar at Begumpet. I reached there along with Uma on his Bullet after a chai somewhere on the way. There were about twenty participants in the hall seated at the round tables arranged. After registering we were given a rose, I wonder why. Soon the session began with the introduction of the participants. This was one of the disappointing things I wish could have been done in a better way. None of the participants got to tell their backgrounds, their writing dreams and goals, plans and achievements and also what they expected from the workshop. The two presenters were introduced and the actual workshop began with one of them taking the mike.

Raksha Bharadia was the first presenter at the workshop. I had not realized that the curly haired lady with attractive eyes and dressed smartly in a skirt and shirt was Raksha Bharadia. Her presentation was good with her effort showing in it. She was also eager to tell us everything she knew about writing. Her session included some exercises designed to loosen up our creativity. We had to write ten words that come to mind while thinking of a memory or a situation. One exercise about imagining being a three year old kid had a few of the participants in tears. It must have brought up some unpleasant memories for them. She also told the participants about sending their stories for two ‘Chicken Soup for the Indian …’ series in the making. There was more later.

Next was BG or Biswanath Ghosh, looking fit and dapper in dark clothes and trendy shoes. He spoke for a short while before we broke for lunch. I had taken along my Mont Blanc Meisterstuck hoping it would catch his attention because he too was a fountain pen freak. It did. He asked me if it was a roller ball or a fountain pen. Later he signed with the same pen on my copy of his book ‘Chai Chai’ that I had brought along. When I told him that I had just finished revising my first book he advised me to send it right away to the publishers. Getting BG’s signature on the book was one of the two reasons why I felt the workshop was worthwhile. The second reason came next, during BG’s post lunch session.

BG emphasized, in his power point presentation, five things a writer should not forget- Perseverance, Observation, Wrestle (with laziness), be Engaging, and Rewrite, which form the P-O-W-E-R of Writing. Earlier he had said that the first paragraph is usually a reliable indicator of the rest of the manuscript. As part of an exercise, BG asked the participants to imagine ourselves to be a character in a fiction work and write 300-500 words on our thoughts before coming to the workshop. I managed to scribble a couple of hundred of words. We all had to read out the exercise one by one and BG made a few crisp but insightful observations on our writing. Most of the participants had written powerful prose which impressed BG. After I read out my exercise he said the honesty showed in my writing. I felt very happy about it. Later I had more reason to feel doubly happy.

While the others were reading out their exercises I had to go out to take a call on my mobile. I happened to come across Raksha Bharadia while coming back. She gave me a huge smile and told me she liked what I wrote for my exercise. It was another thing that made me feel the workshop was worthwhile. Coming from Raksha Bharadia who has published a couple of her own books (‘Me- A Handbook for Life,’ ‘Roots and Wings’) and also co-authored a few books in the ‘Chicken Soup for the Indian…’ series, it was quite a compliment. It was quite a confidence booster, her comments on my writing.

After a short Q&A session the two writers left leaving behind about twenty people filled with the confidence that one day they would write a book. One of the disappointments with the workshop was that no one talked about writing books. Also I felt that it would have been better if all the participants had a brief one to one session with the two presenters. It would have worked wonders for the participants and also given the chance to the presenters to give further feedback about the participants’ writing. On the whole it was a satisfactory experience considering the positive feedback I got from the two writers regarding my writing.