#AUGUST WEP WINNER'S POST - RED WHEELBARROW - READ ABOUT KALPANAA AND HER COTTAGE IN THE HIMALAYAS!!

The WEP team would like to emphasize once again what a treasure trove of excellent writing the August RED WHEELBARROW prompt was. Picking three out of so many is always difficult, but this time at least we were all unanimous that the outright winner was Kalpanaa. Judge Nick Wilford said:

"An intriguing story that works, I think, because of the questions it raises - sometimes it's good to leave the reader guessing. A hint of the supernatural and a portrait of a strained family dynamic that allows us to empathize with Kelly."

If you haven't already, please visit the previous post to read all about the winners and other news.

It is our pleasure to share with you a guest post from Kalpanaa. As well as winning the critique prize from Chrys Fey, Kalpanaa writes a guest post for WEP and the IWSG newsletter which will be out soon.

Here's Kalpanaa's post:

A WRITER FIRST

Are you a writer first and a _______ second? With the blank representing whatever career or money earning occupation you fill your days with that keeps you from your writing but pays your bills?

Some of us don’t have the luxury to just write, others don’t want to be dictated to about what to write, which means that like me, you’re a writer/teacher or a writer/something else. It isn’t exactly an ideal solution because teaching is a job that needs horrible amounts of keeping of records. Since I wrote the story for the Red Wheelbarrow WEP prompt, I've written a couple of blog posts but the bulk of my writing has been lesson plans, lesson reflections, emails and WhatsApp messages.


I consoled myself with these lines from the  book we are reading for the IWSG Book Club. It’s Betsy Lerner’s The Forest for the Trees: An editor’s advice to writers. Betsy writes, “I believe there is still enormous value in a piece of writing that goes no farther than the one person for whom it was intended, that no combination of written words is more eloquent than those exchanged between lovers and friends, or along the pale blue lines of private diaries, where people take communion with themselves.’


Those lines took the edge off my not-writing-anguish.  I’m striving to change my circumstances so that I have more time to write things other than lesson plans.  But my WIP weeps copious tears at this sop – that all writing (even lesson reflections) is writing. There is an urgency to my figuring out my life so that I can work remotely and not at a desk for eight hours. So that I can live, for most of the month, in my cottage in the Himalayas.


That cottage is not a distant dream but a five-and-a-half-hour train journey to a station called Kathgodam where butterflies are the size of small birds, fluttering from blossom to blossom with the bluest sky as a backdrop and the scent of fresh air wafting down the green hills.

Winding up the hills to the writing cottage

After another hour  up a  winding around many disorienting hills, over bridges spanning exuberant aquamarine rivers hurtling over rocks, a couple of spring-fed lakes with forests on their shores we stop at a market town. I buy eggs, fruit, vegetables and wine before we drive up the last twenty minutes leaving behind the lakes, the hill houses and the paragliding stations.


The garden is asleep under the sun, a new rose has opened her petals. Ingredients are put into the bread-maker, a cup of tea is brewed and I plant myself on the porch with my laptop. Distractions are gentle, the song of a starling, a moonrise, an eventful sky, a bunch of visiting monkeys snacking on blossoms. They don’t count as distractions but as opportunities to stop and stare, to think about what I’ve written and to inspire me to get back to work so that I can reach my word count before wine o’clock. Can’t allow myself that glass of red otherwise.

View from the porch

Writing at the cottage is my plan for the future. In the meantime I sneak in a couple of paragraphs here and there like someone having an affair with writing. I can’t wait for the day when I’m married to my novel.


How do you write? Are you married to your writing or having an affair with it?

Check out ideas from the WEP 2019 Challenges Page for the next prompt. It doesn't have to be horror. October is always our most popular month and we'll have special prizes!!

Also please check out Denise's guest post at the IWSG website. She's talking about, you guessed it, WRITING TO PROMPTS.

FOR THE WEP TEAM!

WEP February Winner - Kalpanaa & Making Writing A Priority

_{Kalpanaa, winner of the WEP February Flash Fiction Challenge, Back of the Drawer, with her work The Dresser is here today with a guest post}

_{Making Writing a Priority.}

_{Take it away, Kalpanaa!}

_{Making my writing my highest priority was my New Year’s Resolution, and I’m watching with fascination how events unfold to make that a possibility. Setting an intention is the first thing you need to do when you’re trying to achieve something. As a result of this resolve, I’m basking in sunshine these days because two happenings blossomed in my life. The first is my resignation from my day job. I did this specifically to have more time to write. The thought of those endless rolling hills of free time to ponder, research, set down, edit, publish and bow to the cheering crowds (hopefully) has lifted my spirits to a level of girlish giggling. Which is why I was slightly taken aback when Yolanda and Denise serendipitously suggested I write about my writing journey (amongst other suggestions, to be fair). Stumped because there was a real danger of my writing a navel-gazing blog post since I’m in the thick of assessing my life goals and jotting them down in a journal.}

_{I’ve always known I want to be a writer - spending the long hot summers of childhood writing feverishly, my mother a captive audience - captured by her duty to be encouraging. Later I wrote poems, and stories and, like a mimosa (flower - not cocktail) hid them away after even one not-so-pleasant comment. Feedback about my other writing didn’t cut so deep which meant I could write often and much about education, parenting, gender, book reviews - thoroughly enjoying the freelance life - which is the only kind of life a writer can thrive in. It gives you the freedom to dream and to write. You have the necessary time at your disposal to follow a regular writing schedule instead of one that’s squeezed between the car pool, the laundry and a night of much-needed rest. I was very impressed to hear that Dan Brown writes all those complex novels by waking up an hour earlier every morning and then going to his teaching job. Although I believe that was in the early days of his writing life and he now spends the entire day writing.} 

_{In the aftermath of my divorce 11 years ago, my freelance writing career nosedived as I attempted to make sense of the enormity of the changes in my life. A shocking discovery about my past, the empty nest, death of a parent and drastic changes to the life I used to lead, drove me further into my introverted writer’s shell. Processing those cataclysmic life changes meant I just didn’t have the energy to write to editors with ideas for work. I did try though.  When they rejected my proposals, as editors do sometimes (often) my battered psyche took it as a personal rejection of that particular idea or article. So, I put it away quietly in a dark box. I began to believe I would feel better in a new place.  Plans to leave the country involved finding a line of work that would make this possible. I got myself a teaching qualification. I did continue to write blogs and stories, but I put most of it away in the dark box, fearing rejection.} 

_{The job I’m resigning from involves teaching English to small Korean children. It’s quite lovely being around children, watching them progress and coming up with new ideas to make the day fascinating for them as well as for me. The drawback is that it leaves me with no time to write. And with no energy either. Doing the Dan Brown thing didn’t really work for me because I catch the school bus at 7 am - where was I going to find an hour to write before that? I did better with writing in the evening when I was more relaxed.} 

 _{Despite the wait (we have a 3 month notice period) the decision has given me a huge burst of writing energy, and I’m gearing up for the A to Z Challenge with much pleasurable anticipation. My theme this year is the Lexicon of Leaving. It’s all about Divorce.} 

_{As writers, we often make the mistake of putting our writing second, or even third or fourth. Many of us grow up with the certainty that we want to be writers but then do so many other things as well. Did that happen to you? I’d love to hear about how you sidelined your writing. Do you have the courage to live by your writing?} 

_{I know I didn’t honour my craft and for a very good reason. My children came first, and I believed I could always write at night when they were asleep, or not sick, or grown up - or, like Dan Brown, early morning. People gave me books to read, written by women writers and we marveled at how the women wrote at night, after washing the nappies and cooking dinner. They couldn’t make writing the center point of their lives. Perhaps I could have. I don’t know. What I do know is that I have now made it central to my life, putting aside worries and fears about my financial situation and other practical matters and making space to write.}

_{In addition to making mental space to write, I firmly believe we need a physical space to write in and have been much influenced by Virginia Woolf and ‘A Room of One’s Own.'} 

_{Writers are sensitive, observant people and we don’t put only our friends, family and colleagues under the microscope. We spend a good deal of time examining ourselves and our work. I do. I know my faults as a writer (and as a person). Do you know yours?}

_{It’s important to think what your drawbacks as a writer are - and then, of course, to work on them.} 

_{Mine are impatience and feeling shy about my work. The only reason my story, ‘The Dresser’ was better than others I’ve put out there is because I edited, revised, showed it to a couple of trusted lieutenants, implemented their suggestions and then sent it off. In working the way I know I should, I didn’t listen to my impatient self that wanted to send it off immediately and be done with it. I had to overcome my reluctance to show my work to people I know well, who could judge me and make me feel terrible instead of just tossing it into the internet. In cyberspace strangers, will read to oohs and aahs, ignore or actively dislike my word but their opinions won’t shatter my self-confidence and will matter only a little provided I’m satisfied with what I’ve written.}

_{The second event that’s validating my feeling that I’m a writer is very practical. I’m going to share it with you here because it has honestly made my life much easier and more ‘writer-like.' I often write in notebooks - because pen to paper gets me to be very creative with my language if there’s been a long gap in the writing life. I then can’t find the notebook I was writing in, or the page I scribbled on. I also write on scraps of waste paper and tuck them into notebooks. Sometimes the notebooks are too heavy to carry around resulting in situations where I have time to write, the ideas are flowing, but there’s nowhere to note things down. I find these frustrations killing and just can’t scoop up the idea later in the day and write about it. I’m moody that way. It isn’t a good thing, I know. I’m aware that discipline matters and other such character building traits ensure success, but I still feel annoyed and am easily distracted by a friend, a child’s story or a cat video on the internet. But now I’ve discovered Ulysses. It’s a distraction-free writing app I downloaded on my laptop and my phone. I write at home, and the cloud sends it to my phone. I edit on the bus on the way to school. At school, if I have free time I can continue to write either on my phone or on my work laptop which also has the app, miraculously. (I know, I know - it isn’t really a miracle. Just the cloud. Which is a miracle) Nothing gets lost. I can publish directly to my blog from Ulysses. I can email an editor. I know it’s a shiny new toy, and there were always ways I could have done this, but the ease and simplicity of it have changed my life. It’s an Apple app but do check to see if they have a Microsoft version. A good writing experience enhances your pleasure in writing. What do you use to write? Can you recommend some writing tools?} 

_{My New Year’s Resolution ensured I found the gaps in my writing process and sent me the solutions. That’s serendipity for you. If you make writing your priority, everything will move in that direction to ensure you can write. Time to write, space to write, patience, courage and the right tools - what more does a writer need?} 

**

Thank you, Kalpanaa!
What more does a writer need?
That app sounds amazing.

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The #WEPFF BACK OF THE DRAWER Challenge Winner Guest Post - Kalpanaa @DeniseCCovey& @YolandaRenee http://writeeditpublishnow.blogspot.com/2017/03/wep-february-winner-kalpanaa-making.html

Celebrate with Kalpanaa first place winner #WEPFF BACK OF THE DRAWER Feb Challenge @DeniseCCovey & @YolandaRenee http://writeeditpublishnow.blogspot.com/2017/03/wep-february-winner-kalpanaa-making.html

Kalpanaa, winner of the #WEPFF Challenge with The Dresser shares her writing journey! @DeniseCCovey & @YolandaRenee http://writeeditpublishnow.blogspot.com/2017/03/wep-february-winner-kalpanaa-making.html

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