Follow Your Heart.

So this guy got one of the top two places in a short story writing contest last year!  Hope y'all like it!

 

 

FOLLOW YOUR HEART

 

WHAM!

 

Amelia slammed on her brakes with a screech; her blue Honda Fit swerved violently before it finally came to a stop in front of the green traffic light. People honked behind her as she got out of the car. She ran to the spot where the cyclist she had just hit sat rubbing his forehead. A police officer stood next to him with a bottle of water.

 

“We’re letting you off this time, ma’am, but if it happens again, you’re gonna get a sure trip to jail,” the officer said, handing her a speeding ticket. Amelia fumbled in her purse for her wallet.

 

She frowned; she’d left it on the dresser. Again. She looked apologetically at the officer, who shook his head and turned away. She glanced at her watch: half past ten already?! She bolted to her car (which was pretty difficult considering her attire consisted of a floral skirt and a purple-and-green plaid coat), slammed the door, and stepped on the gas. Her boss was going to get really angry. She was certain he was going to fire her.

 

Over the past year, Amelia had been trying her hand at writing. One of her articles, titled ‘The Bush Effect', which was about the problems the former U.S. President’s ‘trickle-down’ policy had on the economy, had gone absolutely viral. It was so popular she even thought about leaving her job and devoting all of her time to writing. After that, she wrote a particularly provocative article about the White House travel office controversy; it was not well received, and editor after editor turned it down. Not one magazine wanted to publish her articles because they were afraid of getting kicked out of business. Gradually, she lost interest in writing, and after a few months she stopped altogether. Amelia was devastated.

She’d lit a matchstick in the fireplace and torn and burnt all of her manuscripts one by one—she could still remember the crackling sound that had ensued as they were reduced to ashes. Her brain told her to pay attention to her work, but her heart told her to get back to writing.

 

She had listened to her brain, and she regretted it, even now.

 

Amelia turned left. She could hear a cardinal whistling and the rustling of leaves. She stopped and looked long at the majestic red bird strutting across the branch of the tree, and suddenly in her heart she knew that what she had been doing all these days was simply out of fear. She’d stuck to what she was comfortable with, even though she knew it wasn’t right—for her. And now the universe was making her pay for it.

 

She parked her car in the lot and got out. She knew what she had to do. She walked

towards her boss’s office and waited until he opened the door for her.

 

“Amelia—”

 

“I know; I’m resigning.”

 

“What?” he looked shocked; he’d wanted to do the honours. “Why?”

 

“It’s too stressful in here for me....especially after last year. I’ve just realized I like writing more than sitting around worrying about money and credit. I’m not into this anymore.”

 

“Well, it’s your choice. Good luck.”

 

Two weeks later, Amelia was driving her Honda with the windows rolled down and the sun on her cheeks. She was finally back on track.

 

She smiled. She just had the coolest idea for an article!

*

 

Thank you for reading!  Please comment/ like/ share if you liked it.

Hasta la vista, amigos!

 



More Photos.

 

 

 

 

Twelve.

I found this today. 

Midnight is fascinating.

Photos

The Ostrich Who Could Fly

Hello, everyone!  I'm writing a blog post after an unusually long time.
I wrote a poem; I hope y'all like it! 


The Ostrich Who Could Fly

Once as I was walking
Across a barren land,
I chanced upon an ostrich
With his head half in the sand.

I stopped awhile, listened closely,
The ostrich was now weeping
I asked him what was wrong;
He didn't answer; silence creeping.

He straightened his long neck,
And pointed to the sky
I craned my neck to see and I saw
Ostriches that could fly.

Tears were running down his cheeks,
I asked him,"Didn't you try?"
"I did," he said, his voice cracking,
"I s'pose I'm not meant to fly."

"Try a thousand times," I said,
"You'll fly eventually, you'll see,
Just because you couldn't fly then
Doesn't mean that's all you can be."

The ostrich nodded, wiped his tears,
I left him to his devices,
Life's too short to be bogged down
By these insignificant crises.

A few months later, I walked again
Across that barren land,
I'd forgotten all about
The ostrich in the sand.

But then I saw a shadow
On the ground ahead of me
And I remembered the ostrich
Who had wanted to be free.

I looked up, and there he was
Soaring gracefully through the air
I smiled to myself, and realized
Life really isn't unfair.

~Vruta Gupte.

P.S. I've added Disqus comments on here (only people who are viewing this on their computers will be able to see it, but if you're using a cellphone, you can still comment using the default Blogger comment box.)  

If you want to check out more of my writing, please click here. Thank you! 

Two-Word Poem #2

My second two-word poem. I'm a fan of these; so much can be said in just two words.
It's what you don't say that matters in this kind of poetry more than what you do say. The rest is up to the imagination of the reader.

“She laughed."

Two-Word Poem #1

Two-word poems are actually quite elegant.
Here's my first one.

“If Only."

If you liked it, please leave a comment below or go to the “My Own Writing" for more of my poems. Thank you!

Modern Breakup Story.

The Perks Of A Not-So-Smart Phone

Still waiting.
Ping, ping.
Unlocked screen.
I saw another name.
I locked it again.
I sent a message five minutes ago.
You'd replied to the message I sent before that.
But you'd read this one.
And you hadn't replied yet.
You kept me waiting.
I shouldn't have enabled the ‘send read report' option.
But now it's grayed out and I can't do anything but wait.
Such a calamity.
Still waiting.

~ Vruta Gupte.

The Plight of the Underling

An original poem in two pictures.  Pretty neat, eh?  (This is the original and only copy of the poem.  Please comment or notify me if the pictures aren't clear--thank you!)

P.S. I've added Disqus comments on here (only people who are viewing this on their computers will be able to see it, but if you're using a cellphone, you can still comment using the default Blogger comment box.)  Thank you! 

~ Vruta Gupte.

Walks.

Walks

Why do I have to walk as fast as you do?
Why do you want me to walk with you?
Why can't we just walk in silence?
Why should I walk behind you if a bike's in our way, looking to avoid a speed breaker?
Why can't the bike just go over it instead?
Why am I the one who gets out of the way every time?
Why am I walking so fast?
Slow down....
You're walking, for Pete's sake.
You say brisk walking is good for your health, but brisk walking is just going to elevate your blood pressure,
Compared to slow walking.
Since when did walking have to be an exercise?
Couldn't it be just....another time to get to know yourself?
Couldn't it be just walking?
Why do you seek to complicate even the simplest of things?
It's just walking.
Just walk.

~Vruta Gupte.

Being Lost.

I've given myself a challenge.

It's called 'The Write a Free-verse Poem in Three Minutes Challenge'.

So here goes.  (I'm writing this poem like I wrote 'Stars in the Sky': spontaneously.)

Being Lost.

The little girl
Wearing a red dress
With yellow polka-dots
And blue ribbons
Went for a walk 
On the dirt road
Leading into the forest
Where she saw a lake
That she couldn't cross
So she sat there on the shore
She sat there for a thousand years
The immortal girl cries immortal tears
Her tears flow into the lake
The lake gets bigger and bigger
And scarier and darker
Until it goes full circle around the girl
Immortal girl with immortal curls
Swirling violently
To sink a ship
To sink a ship of immortality
She shudders and takes a deep breath
And falls asleep on the small island
The small island that is now her land
Two hundred years later
The lake has dried up
But the immortal girl
With her immortal tears
With her immortal curls
And her immortal fears
Is nowhere to be found.

~Vruta Gupte.

The Candy Seller--Part Two

Hello, everyone!  I'd said that the second part of my story called 'The Candy Seller' would be out soon, and here it is!

Hope you like it.

*

“Hello there, young lady, what can I do for you?” he had asked, smiling.

“Oh, well,” she hesitated, but fought off the fear of being reprimanded and breathed, “Could-you-please-give-me-a-rabbit-shaped-chocolate?”

“Of course,” he had said as he produced one (seemingly) out of nowhere, wrapped in shimmering gold paper and a sparkling red bow tied on top, dead centre.

The girl grinned and fumbled around in her pocket, her ears straining to hear the characteristic ‘clank’ of metal upon metal.

It was empty.

Apparently the candy seller had realized the enormity of her situation: “You can have it anyway, child.”

The girl frowned—she did not like being pitied.  Her love for chocolates—or rabbit-shaped chocolates, in particular—eventually won the ensuing internal battle.  The old man placed the box into her hand gingerly.

“Thank you, mister!” the girl exclaimed happily, her eyes twinkling—the world was a beautiful place, she said to herself.

She looked up to see the candy seller still standing there, smiling at her. 

She grinned back.

And that was how a young girl who had no home to live in and an old man who was a candy seller became friends.

*

Want to read more of my writing? Click here!

I've added Disqus comments on here.  Please click on the time-stamp near the end of the post to comment.  (If you don't have a Disqus account, you can still comment as a guest with a custom name.) Thank you!

Extra Short Poems #1

Hey guys,

This is one of my extra short poems (as is evident from the title, heh).

Drawing

And I couldn't draw a straight line for the life of me,
Even if you'd pinned me up against a tree
And I don't know what to do now,
Maybe I'll eat mein Chow.

~ Vruta Gupte.

P.S. If you set this to jazz music, it'll sound better, because that's how I imagined it.

I'm kidding; imagine it however you like.

P.P.S. Is the semicolon obsolete yet? Oh, no, it isn't; good.

P.P.P.S Want to read more of my writing? Click here!

I've added Disqus comments on here.  Please click on the time-stamp near the end of the post to comment.  (If you don't have a Disqus account, you can still comment as a guest with a custom name.) Thank you!

Cocoon (Or 'How To Become A Butterfly')

Cocoon

There once was a caterpillar;
He lived in a cocoon
He used to wonder if he would ever see the sun
Or the moon, 
Or the stars shining brilliantly in the sky.
He wondered
What he would look like
When he would become a butterfly.
He'd only heard about all these
In poems or in stories
He waited, and waited, 
And waited to be free--
To be free, and to fly
From the cocoon in the tree.
He ate and he slept 
And he laughed and he wept
And he wondered, how he wondered!
Would he ever get out of the cocoon in the tree?
He remembered his mother telling him,
"You'll only be a butterfly
If you really, really want to try."
And so he tried.
He tried, he tried, and he
Tried to be a butterfly,
But he couldn't.
He couldn't be a butterfly--
He cried.
He thought of living 
Forever in the cocoon in the tree
He thought of giving
Up his fanatical fantasy.
But he didn't--
And he tried, he tried, he tried,
He cried, he cried, he tried
And finally he made a hole in the silk of his cocoon
(It wasn't a hole, but he called it one.)
And he cried tears of joy as he saw the starlight,
And he cried tears of joy as he saw the moon
And he broke out and flew away from his little cocoon.

 - Vruta Gupte.

Want to read more of my writing? Click here!

P.S. I've added Disqus comments on here.  Please click on the time-stamp near the end of the post to comment.  (If you don't have a Disqus account, you can still comment as a guest with a custom name.) Thank you!

Ad Occursum Futurum

Hello everyone,

This is just to tell you I will not be posting as frequently as I have these past couple of months.  (I'm preparing for the IIT entrance exam, and that doesn't leave me with too much time to update this blog with good writing.)

Maybe I'll find time to write, maybe I won't, but I'll still come back whenever I can!

Thank you for reading; ad occursum futurum!

~ Vruta.


P.S. The Candy Seller: Part Two will be published when I finish it: maybe a few weeks later.  I think I'm running a little low on imagination.
You can read some of my other writing here.  Thank you!

Monday Morning Blues

People who can eat breakfast outside in their gardens are very lucky.  

Have a good day, everyone!

Want to read some of my writing? Click here!

P.S. I've added Disqus comments on here.  Please click on the time-stamp near the end of the post to comment.  (If you don't have a Disqus account, you can still comment as a guest with a custom name.) Thank you!

Pot Of Gold

I wrote this yesterday.  Hope y'all like it!

Pot of Gold

I met a traveler, he told me
To journey where no one has ever gone before--
To the end.
I asked him,“ The end of what?"
And he replied, with glinting eye,
"The end of the rainbow."
I asked him why, and he said
That people go there to get their pot of gold,
But they do not realize
That the pot of gold cannot be found there--
Instead if they look within themselves,
They will find all the gold they need.

~ Vruta Gupte.

Want to read more of my writing? Click here!

P.S. I've added Disqus comments on here.  Please click on the time-stamp near the end of the post to comment.  (If you don't have a Disqus account, you can still comment as a guest with a custom name.) Thank you!

The Candy Seller--Part One

Hello everyone!  I've been working on a new story--a new short story.  It's called 'The Candy Seller' (I think you might've gathered that much from the title--if not, you're free to read anyway.) This is what I've finished 'til now.  Hope you like it!

*

THE CANDY SELLER

It was dark.  The moonlight danced its way to fill the gaps between the few trees that stood wearily in the middle of the road.  The air was heavy with unwelcome dust and smoke, and if you stood still long enough, you could hear the trees groaning, and the female birds silently comforting their children, who were complaining about how hard it was to breathe in the foul breeze that blew.

None of this, however, was noticed by the girl who roamed the streets at night, looking for a place to sleep or a half-eaten sandwich carelessly tossed into one of the bins on the sidewalk.  The world had been like this—smelly, dirty, foul—ever since she had been born, and so she never questioned the absence of fresh air—she didn’t know what it was.

The girl had blue eyes, and if you looked closely enough, you would see the starlight reflected in them.  Her mother, before she had died of illness, had told her to look at the stars whenever she felt abandoned, or alone; she had told her the stars would be her friends, ready to lift her out of any darkness that was unfortunate enough to have crossed her path.  No, she was never unfortunate.  It was always the darkness that was unfortunate, her mother would say.  For soon her inner light would vanquish the darkness, and the world would shine and sparkle once more, as it always had.  But she also reminded her that without darkness, light would not have existed.  And so one must also allow a little sadness into one’s life. 

She now sat in front of a shop she had found the other day.  The sweet, stuffy smell of golden-brown caramel filled the air.  The old bearded man would come out any moment now.  She remembered how he had talked to her the other day when she had asked him for a rabbit-shaped chocolate. 

*

This is only the first installment, Part Two's coming soon (if I don't leave this story midway like all the others.  I really do hope I don't, because that says a thousand words about my...perseverance, you could say.)  Anyway, thank you for reading, and see you soon!  

Oh, and check out Melissa Chelsey's blog, I just found it, and she's awesome!

She's got a book coming out soon, I think, I don't know.  
Cheers!

Want to check out more of my writing?  Click here! (I've never quite got this bit right in my posts.  I'm still unsure how to phrase this part correctly....and without sounding like a troll.)

P.S. Disqus comments are enabled.  Feel free to leave your thoughts about this piece below; thank you! (So that went well.)

How To Write A Haiku Poem

Moleskine is a notebook company, if I'm not mistaken.

So it's been a while since I've published a 'how-to' post out here, so I'm going to do just that.

A few days ago, I was browsing through a poetry website, and these beautiful haikus caught my attention:

Blowing from the west
Fallen leaves gather
In the east.

- Buson

I kill an ant
and realize my three children
have been watching.

- Kato Shuson

Cool air--
the evening mountain
becomes itself.

 - Issa

(Issa was actually a very prolific haiku poet, and one of the most famous.  Many haiku poets draw inspiration from his haikus.)

Haikus are normally used to represent natural phenomena and happenings, but they can also be used to describe certain mundane or everyday situations.  For example:

Tired cat sleeps all night.
He needs lots of rest for a
Long day of napping.

 - Kenn Nesbitt

This was just to give you an example of how haiku poems are generally written.  Haikus are mostly easy to write, but capturing a whole scene in three lines, conforming to a set standard of syllable counts in each line, can sometimes be more difficult than most poets think (at first glance).

Anyway, here is how I write all my haiku poems (although I haven't written many):

Step One: Decide What You Want to Write.

This is often the easiest step in the process of writing a haiku.  You could write about flowers blooming in spring, leaves falling in autumn, the sun melting a snowman, snow on the sidewalk, a full moon, anything!  Haikus are very diverse in that respect.

Step Two: Condense It.

Decide what exactly you want to depict in your poem.  Describe what you want to write about in four or five lines.

What will the haiku sound like?  Will be happy, or sad?  Will the ending be unprecedented, or predictable?  You choose.

Step Three: Give It Structure.

So now that you've decided what to write in your haiku, you have to structure your idea according to the 'rules' for a haiku.

The first line usually contains five syllables, the second line has seven, and the third line has five again, sorta like this:

My homework is late.
My dog ate it this morning.
I sure like my dog.

 - Kenn Nesbitt

(You have to admit that's funny!)

There!  You have a haiku poem!  

The syllable count isn't always five-seven-five, I've seen haikus (mostly Issa's) that have only two syllables in the first line, six in the second, and three in the third. 

Here are some I wrote:

An apple cries out
In pain, in grief, slices, tortured--
No stains on the knife.

 - Vruta Gupte.

(Poor apple.)

Silence at sunrise
No birds cooing softly;
Concrete everywhere.

 - Vruta Gupte.

Feel free to write some of your own haikus in the comment section below!  (Click on the timestamp or on the post title.  Disqus comments are enabled.) 

Thank you for reading, and keep writing!


References: 
www.wikihow.com/Write-a-Haiku-Poem
www.poetry4kids.com/blog/lessons/how-to-write-a-haiku/

Poems By Robert Frost

There are few of us who haven't heard about the famous American poet Robert Frost (1874-1963).  I read a few of his poems on a site called PoetryFoundation and thought I should share some of them with you.  They're beautiful.

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

BY ROBERT FROST

Whose woods these are I think I know. 

His house is in the village though;

He will not see me stopping here   

To watch his woods fill up with snow.   

My little horse must think it queer   

To stop without a farmhouse near   

Between the woods and frozen lake   

The darkest evening of the year.   

He gives his harness bells a shake   

To ask if there is some mistake.   

The only other sound’s the sweep   

Of easy wind and downy flake.   

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,   

But I have promises to keep,   

And miles to go before I sleep,   

And miles to go before I sleep.

Robert Frost, “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” from The Poetry of Robert Frost, edited by Edward Connery Lathem. Copyright 1923, © 1969 by Henry Holt and Company, Inc., renewed 1951, by Robert Frost. Reprinted with the permission of Henry Holt and Company, LLC.

Birches

BY ROBERT FROST

When I see birches bend to left and right
Across the lines of straighter darker trees,
I like to think some boy's been swinging them.
But swinging doesn't bend them down to stay
As ice-storms do. Often you must have seen them
Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning
After a rain. They click upon themselves
As the breeze rises, and turn many-colored
As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel.
Soon the sun's warmth makes them shed crystal shells
Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust—
Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away
You'd think the inner dome of heaven had fallen.
They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load,
And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed
So low for long, they never right themselves:
You may see their trunks arching in the woods
Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground
Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair
Before them over their heads to dry in the sun.
But I was going to say when Truth broke in
With all her matter-of-fact about the ice-storm
I should prefer to have some boy bend them
As he went out and in to fetch the cows—
Some boy too far from town to learn baseball,
Whose only play was what he found himself,
Summer or winter, and could play alone.
One by one he subdued his father's trees
By riding them down over and over again
Until he took the stiffness out of them,
And not one but hung limp, not one was left
For him to conquer. He learned all there was
To learn about not launching out too soon
And so not carrying the tree away
Clear to the ground. He always kept his poise
To the top branches, climbing carefully
With the same pains you use to fill a cup
Up to the brim, and even above the brim.
Then he flung outward, feet first, with a swish,
Kicking his way down through the air to the ground.
So was I once myself a swinger of birches.
And so I dream of going back to be.
It's when I'm weary of considerations,
And life is too much like a pathless wood
Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs
Broken across it, and one eye is weeping
From a twig's having lashed across it open.
I'd like to get away from earth awhile
And then come back to it and begin over.
May no fate willfully misunderstand me
And half grant what I wish and snatch me away
Not to return. Earth's the right place for love:
I don't know where it's likely to go better.
I'd like to go by climbing a birch tree,
And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk
Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,
But dipped its top and set me down again.
That would be good both going and coming back.
One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.

Source: The Poetry of Robert Frost (1969)