Ruchira's Ramblings

I know, I know, it’s not Christmas yet it’s Halloween. I’m just impatient like that. So here goes my wish list in my capacity as an Ether Author (and other Ether authors are welcome to add their own suggestions). For those who don’t know what an ‘Ether Author’ is (seriously, where have you been?) the term basically refers to a human individual who has a story/poem/essay etc. published as a free or paid (with a minimum)as a on the Ether App which is like your very own personalized pocket library available as a FREE download on your Apple gadgets. And if you want to hear it from the horse’s mouth: Ether Books is a new and innovative mobile publisher , providing the very best short content direct to your mobile phone . We publish short fiction, articles, poetry and serials from both bestselling and emerging contemporary writers. To enjoy your own personal library of ‘ byte sized reads ’ right now, go to the Apple App store to download our FREE application. If you are a writer , you c

-Why are you here? -Why am I here? Is that all you can say? After all these years? -I do not wish to remember. -But you haven’t really forgotten, have you? - -Meera, please- -Don’t call me Meera. I don’t have a name. - … I’ve looked for you for so long—believe me, when you disappeared- -You didn’t look for me . -Oh yes I did. Listen, Meera- -I’m not Meera. The girl called Meera died years and years ago- that wasn’t me. I didn’t disappear, I just wasn’t ever there. You searched for the wrong person- she’s dead, you hear me? -I searched for you. You aren’t dead. -I’m not her. -Of course not. You are you. And it’s you I’ve been looking for, it’s you I want. -Yes, as a replacement. -No, as a sister. -Sorry to disappoint. I’m nobody’s sister. I’m not the daughter of anybody’s parents. You , of all people should know that. -You are my sister. That-that house you left, it’s as much your house as it’s mine. Let’s go home, Meera. -You did so well till the last word. -What do

PLEASE NOTE: This blog-post has got nothing to do with my writings, so I would like to request those who are here for my Friday Flash and 2nd Tuesday posts to please check the other posts. Thank you. I'm making a break from my usual blog subjects in order to express my feelings about something that has been part of life in a big way the last few months- the Magic is Might roleplay organized by the Wizarding Life website that made me...made all of us relive the magic of Harry Potter once again. So alright - I haven't been the most prolific of the MiMers. I haven't been able to stay up when the action happened (3 in the morning for me) and I almost always ended up at a Hogwarts party after it was over. In all these months, I haven't been able to attend a single DA meeting, nor have I ever submitted homework on Muggle Studies or any other subjects. Nevertheless, MiM has been a big part of my life. It was in fact, like a routine, a habit...going to bed at night wondering i

Okay, so I have been passed on this writing meme by CatWoman Patti Larsen who has this fantastic story about a crow called Henry (just go check her blog , okay?) and here's a quote I stole from her blog: "A meme is a self-propagating unit of thought spread from one host to another, an idea-gene, if you will. For bloggers, memes can provide insight into the personalities of other writers that you wouldn’t necessarily find in their writing." Well, I don't know how much of an insight this will provide, but I'll try and express what writing means to me. Writing is a journey towards an unknown destination. Sometimes the path is easy,with verdant meadows and wild flowers dotting the road; sometimes it is rough, steep, difficult. Sometimes you may walk with fellow travellers, exchanging ideas, experiences and advices. And sometimes you must slog it alone. There will be times when the excitement of the adventure will keep you going. You will run, and run faster, thrilled

Archaeologists say that the city of Mohenjodara was destroyed by flood & then rebuilt on the ruins for about seven times. What eventually destroyed that ancient civilization we do not know, but what was destroyed in the Indus Valley were not mere walls and garrisons and citadels and public baths. The earthquake, or the drying up of the river, or the invasions… or whatever it was- took with it lives, memories, untold stories- stories that experts are still trying to figure out from the undecipherable seals. The resilient, courageous people of Mohenjodara tried seven times- with each destruction something was lost, yet they strove to build up something new, till they faltered at the end. Today when an earthquake strikes Haiti or when a cyclone ravages Bangladesh and the Eastern coast of India, when a Tsunami shakes Japan or a flood washes away the known contours of Pakistan, New Zealand or Queensland- humankind perhaps has better resources in its hand to pick up the broken pieces tha

The Ether App is like a Magic Book – one little thing with an endless number of stories, poems, essays – whatever you want to read, whenever and wherever, provided you have your little Apple gadget with you. It’s your own personal library- the special thing being it is pocket-sized and therefore portable and a whole lot easier to handle. No dusting the shelves, no loose pages coming out, no having to remember putting in naphthalene balls, it’s completely fuss-free. This is not to suggest you do away with your old library but it will be fun to have a little library on the go, won’t it? And you can easily have one. All you need to do is get an i-phone or i-pad touch, download the FREE Ether Mobile App, and then choose whatever you want to read. A part of the contents is free – and that includes some amazing work by writers both famous and new. The remaining part, which is again from both established and upcoming authors, comes at a price, but think about it- you would pay to buy a magaz

Okay, time for an important announcement. I am now officially an Ether Book Author- that is to say- one of my stories is now available on the Ether Mobile App. It’s called ‘The Visitor’. The story deals with a famous crime-thriller writer who's taking a vacation to finish her next novel in peace, but the plan is interrupted when she receives an unexpected visitor. A visitor who has read all her books, and has taken them a tad too seriously! As for Ether Books- Ether Books is a new and innovative publisher, providing short fiction, poetry & serials from both bestselling & emerging contemporary writers direct to your mobile phone. With the Ether app on your i-phone or i-pad you can always carry a good read in your pocket. Isn’t that convenient. Needless to say, I’m quite delighted to be associated with them and in fact I have been waiting for this with equal amounts of anxiety and eagerness- so this comes To build your own personal library of ‘byte sized reads’, download the

Oh my God, I completely forgot about 2nd Tuesday this time. And missed the submission deadline. Brilliant. I'm still posting this because I wrote it and no point not posting, right? Okay, on to the topic under discussion- Dealing with the Inner Critic, is that it? I’m not sure I can say much on this- seeing that I’m myself not exactly an efficient arbitrator between my writing self and the skeptical, pessimistic, unhappy creature who keeps whispering things like “this plot is lousy” and “this is no good” and “why are you even writing?” She is there as I struggle to find an opening sentence to a piece of work; she is there as I get stuck midway and again when I read a first draft for the first time. How many times have I typed a sentence only for that voice to dismiss it as lame and pathetic? And I don’t know of twelve and a half ways to deal with it, all I do know is I must keep writing ignoring that voice till I can reach the end. It isn’t easy, I fail at it more than I would like

' I don't believe in it (writer's block). All writing is difficult. The most you can hope for is a day when it goes reasonably easily. Plumbers don't get plumber's block, and doctors don't get doctor's block; why should writers be the only profession that gives a special name to the difficulty of working, and then expects sympathy for it? ' ~~Oscar Wilde So here we are again at the second installment of Patti Larsen ’s blog-hop. The topic this month has been suggested by me so you can guess this is a subject of some importance to me- a problem that bugs me frequently, making me devise various schemes to counter it. It comes in various shapes- phases of severe idea-drought, a complete lack of the will to write which sometimes culminates into a fear of the writing act (is there a name for this phobia?), the feeling that nothing I write is good enough and therefore pointless…no matter what it is- there are periods when even the most prolific of us have di

This time last year, I was used to logging into Twitter only to check the tweets of a handful of celebrities that I was following at that time, and to occasionally tweet about my bouts of fever or exam anxieties to no one in particular. My blog was in coma, I spent most of my Facebook time playing Zynga games (Yoville, Farmville, CafeWorld, Petville, Fishville- you name them, I’ve played them all, with the probable exception of Mafia) and in short my social (networking) life was near about non-existent. Then there were last minute revisions, then the exams, then post-exam trips to the shopping mall and to the movie theatre- and I disappeared from the Internet. When I returned in the 2nd half of the year, I went back to playing games. It would have probably gone on like this if I did not receive that message out of nowhere from the 100 Stories for Haiti Facebook group, asking for submissions for yet another charity anthology, this time for the victims of the Pakistan flood. Before thi