Blogging – Of Writing, Discovering and More

by Anupama Krishnakumar

[box]One of the biggest developments that the internet unleashed was the arrival of blogs a few years back, which grew to become great forums for showcasing talent, having discussions, exchanging ideas, making new friends and most importantly, finding an audience in a world where becoming a published author for an aspiring writer was still a formidable task. Anupama Krishnakumar speaks to Parul Sharma, author of ‘Bringing up Vasu : That First Year’ and ‘By the Water Cooler’, Judy Balan, author of ‘Two Fates : The Story of My Divorce’ and Sagarika Chakraborty, author of ‘A Calendar Too Crowded’ – all of whom began as bloggers a few years back before they became published authors. Parul, Judy and Sagarika talk about their days as bloggers, the roles that their blogs played in their writerly journey and of course their books, among a host of other blog-related things.[/box]

Go back in time to the years 2003 and 2004. It was the time when blogging was beginning to surface as a new phenomenon on the internet, especially in India. Budding writers, particularly those looking for an avenue to showcase their writing skills took to blogging like fish to water and soon blogs turned out to be wonderful forums for showcasing talent, having discussions, exchanging ideas, making new friends and most importantly, finding an audience in a world where becoming a published author for an aspiring writer was still a formidable task. Interestingly, as the trend of blogging caught on, the themes of blogs became diverse and more and more people, not necessarily writers, got on board, carving their own spaces on the world wide web and filling it with their thoughts – some even as elementary as daily diaries.

Perhaps the most important consequence of blogging is that it opened the doors for many budding authors to discover their writing in a new light. It ignited the spark in them to test the waters in the Indian publishing scene. Blogging, in the case of some writers, became the stepping stone to turning into a published author, by letting them explore their writing capabilities without much restraint, by making available valuable feedback in the form of blog audience and last but not the least, by giving them the confidence to take the next big step forward. Suffice to say that many popular authors today began as bloggers a few years back.

Parul Sharma, author of the novels ‘Bringing Up Vasu – That First Year’ (Westland, 2009) and ‘By the Water Cooler’ (Westland, 2010), began her blogging life in 2006 and started her popular blog ‘Radio Parul’ (http://orangecandy.blogspot.com), earlier titled, ‘Bringing up Adi’, in 2007. “When I had a baby, I wanted to write about that side of my life. Starting the blog served the purpose of getting me to write regularly, admirably well,” explains Parul.

Judy Balan, author of the book, ‘Two Fates – The Story of My Divorce’ (Westland, 2011), entered the blogging universe in 2009. Talking about why she started writing her blog, ‘Woman and a Quarter’ (http://womanandaquarter.blogspot.in), Judy says, “I was at a place in my life where nothing was working. I had just got divorced, had a very young child and had no choice but to quit my job because she really needed me. And I was only 27. I didn’t have any direction, didn’t know what my next step was going to be, so I started the blog for personal joy.”

For Sagarika Chakraborty, author of the book, ‘A Calendar Too Crowded,’ (Niyogi Books, 2012), who was seriously into well-recognized non-fiction writing when she started her blog sometime in 2010, the question that raged inside her head was, “Would anyone want to read my poetry, my angst, my rant and the stories I spin in my head, or would I be ignored as just another girl who is penning down her thoughts?”

Interestingly, although Sagarika’s currently active blog, Deviant Wave (http://endowedwithmetis.wordpress.com) was started in 2010, the author admits to have begun her blogging stint way back in 2005, as an anonymous blogger. “It was more of an anonymous blog and it was my heartbreak rant journal. I did not want the guy to read it, yet I wanted a space where it felt nice to be read without being judged. However, a year later, I found my own writing to be juvenile and very whiny – needless to say, I closed the blog soon after,” shares Sagarika.

Judy too admits to have blogged anonymously initially. But when she began writing in ‘Woman and a Quarter’ she was very clear that she “wanted to make it a writing exercise as opposed to using it as a cathartic tool.” Therefore, the blog was no longer a space to vent out her feelings but a place where posts were meant to read like a column, even though it drew from her personal experiences. Relationships, writing, parenting breakups, life and letters to The One are some of the themes that Judy focuses on in her blog.

Parul too began blogging on and off in 2006 before she started writing regularly at ‘Radio Parul’ in 2007. Initially, the space used to be a parenting blog but over the years it has grown to encompass her writings on books, movies, music, her family and travel. As Parul succinctly puts it, “The one thing the blog cannot claim to be is focussed!”

Sagarika shares that for her initially blogging was “all about fitting into the ‘blogging world’”. Giving into “peer pressure” in virtual life, she says that her blog in the initial days was “all about ‘Wordless Wednesday’, ‘Thoughtful Thursday’ and other memes to get traffic.” But the blog never really fit into a single genre. “I wanted to keep my blog away from my serious writing of gender studies and thus have kept it as a place where I primarily write fiction and my take on life,” she explains. The topics that her blog features include Mumbai Mondays – a series of posts on the city, childhood stories and ‘Letters to My Daughter’, among others.

Perhaps the most relevant aspect of blogging is the lessons that it has taught these authors. Judy admits that through blogging she learnt to be disciplined as a writer. “It got me into the habit of churning out content frequently – something that helped hugely when I got a weekly column,” she shares. Parul believes that she got better with her writing through blogging, just as is the case with any other form of practice.  Sagarika maintains that blogging helped her acknowledge her strengths and weaknesses as a writer and learn that one cannot fake a writing style for long.

So how much of an influence was her blog in the journey to becoming a published author? Replies Sagarika, “Blogging gave me the confidence that people wanted to read me. The friends I made on the blogosphere were the ones that helped me to actually see it through.” In fact, feedback from her blog readers on few chapters of her book before it was published gave Sagarika some perspective on her work. In her book, ‘A Calendar Too Crowded’ she has blended her area of interest – Gender studies – with a fictional writing style that she focuses on in her blog. The stories are centred on womanhood and as the author explains, ‘The women in my book are nameless, however a majority of them are real. The situations in my book will make you remember a similar one that you read about or faced – for they are common ones that all of us face in life.” Sagarika’s next book is a work of non-fiction – a legal book slated for release in another two months and published by Eastern Book Company.

For Judy, the blog had a very crucial role to play in getting her work published. To begin with, Judy’s blog grew popular within six months after it was started, so much so that three of her posts were turned into plays and another post got published in the chicken soup series. As for her book, ‘Two Fates : The Story of My Divorce’, it all began as a post “joking about how cool it would be if I wrote the parody of Two States, given that I was divorced”. Interestingly, many of her readers got back to her asking her to attempt the book. “So I did. I wrote the book as an experiment – to see if I had it in me to write a full length novel. And when I completed it, I thought I’d send it to some publishers, just like that, and viola!” she shares excitedly. ‘Two Fates’ is essentially a parody of Chetan Bhagat’s ‘Two States : The Story of My Marriage’. Says Judy, “One day, I stumbled upon the parody of Elizabeth Gilbert’s ‘Eat Pray Love’ titled, ‘Drink Play Fuck’. Amused, I picked it up, and later learned that the guy who wrote the parody had already sold movie rights. That’s when I wrote the blog post joking about writing the parody of Two States, which I happened to be reading then just to see what the hype was all about.” Judy’s next book also belongs to the rom-com genre, published by Westland and due for release in April 2013.

Parul, however, says that her blog didn’t play any direct role in getting her first book deal. As someone who had always wanted to write a novel, Parul sent out her manuscript to the publisher once she got it ready. Both her first book ‘Bringing up Vasu : The First Year’ and second book ‘By the Water Cooler’ were published by Westland which will also be publishing her forthcoming third book. Shares Parul, “As a new writer, my first two books were still exploring themes that were familiar to me, namely, motherhood and life in an office. The third book however is about a world that is removed from my own reality. I am very excited about that.” Although her blog didn’t land her a book deal, Parul is quick to point out that one big advantage she got through her blog is her blog audience. “It has helped me by giving a small set of readers who were already aware of me and my writing even before I got published. For a complete newcomer, that’s quite a bonus.”

Now that she is a published author, how does Parul view her blog now? Has its focus or the way she approaches her blog changed? Pat comes her reply, “Not at all! It is still the same place where I hang out when I have things to ramble on about. It’s still fun, which is why I still do it. I still like my readers and want to make them laugh and I hope like mad that they like me too.” Sagarika says that her blog has become all the more important to her now. As a published author, she feels more readers watch out for her blog. “It warms my heart when people who have read my book come searching in order to read more about me and thus stumble on my blog and bookmark it,” shares Sagarika. However, according to her, this also means that there isn’t any room for badly written posts, lest she scares off her future readers. Judy maintains that nothing has really changed about her relationship with her blog. “I did get a touch conscious, initially, but not anymore. I am decidedly myself on the blog and I write as if no one is reading. At least, I try to,” she says.

As she looks back at her journey as a writer so far, Judy feels it’s all divine intervention or serendipity. “It wasn’t just about getting a book published, it opened a whole new door for me – something I didn’t know existed,” she shares. Ask her what she would like to tell bloggers aspiring to become authors, she suggests, “I believe if you keep looking till you find the thing you love to do, you will at some point, stumble upon it. I don’t strategize. Serendipity is so much more fun.” Sagarika says it’s important to listen to your blog’s readers. “Love your readers and if they criticize, reach out to them and hold them close; remember they don’t know you and thus have no obligation to be nice – the chances that they are correct in their observations, thus run very high.” She also suggests that it is important to read other blogs to open the mind and important to compare one’s writing style with others and ultimately, improve. “Look at your blog and ask yourself, do I want to see this in print? If your answer is yes, follow your heart!” she adds. Parul’s advice is simple but sums up the reality very well – “Write a lot, get really good at it and if someone still doesn’t find you, then proactively send out your writing. That’s the only way I know.”

Anupama Krishnakumar loves Physics and English and sort of managed to get degrees in both – studying Engineering and then Journalism. Yet, as she discovered a few years ago, it is the written word that delights her soul and so here she is, doing what she loves to do – spinning tales for her small audience and for her little son, bringing together a lovely team of creative people and spearheading Spark. She loves books, music, notebooks and colour pens and truly admires simplicity in anything! Tomatoes send her into a delightful tizzy, be it in soup or rasam or ketchup or atop a pizza!

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