19/ Oh the horror

of venturing into fiction

I’ve always been one for writing personal essays and thinking out loud. I’ve never written fictional stories before.

To purely break out of the mental block that I am incapable of writing them, I decided to attend a horror writing workshop :|

As someone who steers clear of horror, this was another mental barrier that needed to be shattered.

Excerpts from my writing during the workshop -

I suddenly felt him turn, in an almost inhumanly way toward the sanctum, with his head bent, as if in prayer. I grab his chin and rotate him back towards me, unsuccessfully. I set him down and face him.

He smiled, with a perfectly even set of fully formed teeth and white eyes.

I screamed, and backed away, shaken at the thought of my baby being possessed by a devil in a temple, of all places. I hit the door of the temple and see my baby crawling towards me. In two, three steps he stands up, walking like a fully grown man with menacing eyes. I am torn between running towards and running away.

I somehow managed to write almost 600 words as opposed to my usual 300, which speaks to the effectiveness of sitting and writing with a bunch of people, for almost an hour.

If you want to improve your writing, I urge you to join Write Club. I can attest to their incredibly helpful feedback, discussions and support.

You can join the online version here, and the offline version for folks in Bengaluru here.

It happens from 2 - 5 PM, every Saturday.

Miks Recommends -

1. “Kumari Srimathi” - A stereotype shattering series following a 30-year old unmarried woman who wants to open a bar in her village so she can earn enough money to buy her ancestral grandfather’s house from her conniving uncle. A Telugu series starring Nithya Menen. I binge watched it in two days and highly recommend it.

   

2. “80,000 Hours“ - As you very well know by now, I’ve been struggling with picking my next career path, and I came across a book that is quite helpful. It talks about how we devote almost 80,000 hours of our life to our career and how we can make it fulfilling.

   You can download it here.

Do you have any recommendations for me?

If you’d like to read other pieces, maybe try this one?

Confused, meandering steadily, walking semi-cheerfully forward in a direction,

Miks.