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Each month, we give you a line from a book by an iconic female writer. Write your own story based on the cue. Get published and win goodies!
Each month this year, we’ll be hosting a writing theme, with a ‘writing cue’ from an iconic female author. The 5 best entries get published here!
What you need to do:
Step 1. Read the writing cue and get inspired.
Step 2. Write your own story/narrative based on the cue. You could use it as the opening line, the closing sentence, or somewhere in between! You could choose not to use it anywhere in your story too – just write a story using the cue as a prompt. (And ‘story’ can be fictional – or not – as you wish).
Step 3. Send your story to us.
Where to send:
Send in your story to [email protected] with ‘Muse of the month’ in the subject line, and your story as a word/txt attachment. Please avoid typing the story as inline text. Do include the name we should use if we publish it, and a brief introduction to yourself (2-3 lines) in the mail.
Deadlines:
Please send in your stories by January 24th 2014. The 5 best stories will be published on Women’s Web the following week, i.e. January 27th onwards.
Rules:
– The material should be previously unpublished elsewhere. (Copyright stays with you and you’re free to subsequently publish it elsewhere).
– Keep it between 250 and 800 words.
GOODIES!
The 5 best entries will each win a Flipkart voucher worth Rs. 250.
Joan Didion
Joan Didion is known for her incisive, intimate novels on loss and transition, as well as for her literary journalism. She believes that writing is a process where one person (the writer) convinces another (the reader) to listen to her dream!
Didion counts Ernest Hemingway, Henry James and George Eliot among her influences. She is the author of The Year of Magical Thinking and We Tell Ourselves Stories in Order to Live: Collected Nonfiction.
And now for the writing cue!
“We tell ourselves stories in order to live”.
– from The White Album, Joan Didion
Get started with that as your inspiration, and we hope to hear from you on or before Jan 24th!
Here are the published entries, each taking off from that cue.
Shades of Orange: Deboshree writes a poignant story – of a story a young mother tells herself.
The Connoisseur: Shruthi has a funny story of the stories we make up when we need to.
Returning Home: Rajlakshmi tells a tale in which stories are all that are left, when everything else vanishes.
Stories: Deepthi narrates a story in which some forgotten stories need to remembered, and then put away
The Last Goodbye: Prasanna tells a story in which stories act as consolation – and inspiration
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Relatives kissing children's penises made me wonder how this is leaving boys vulnerable to potential abuse under the garb of affection.
As we witness in all Indian family gatherings – whether a wedding, a birthday, or a summer vacation – nostalgia soaks us all.
However, one such gathering exposed me to a horrific practice that, though common in many houses worldwide, is very problematic.
It all started with my horror at hearing one of the supposedly funny anecdotes about my cousin’s birth.
Many men suffer from an inferiority complex when their women are earning. They feel their wives will rise higher in the professional worlds.
I hear many women tell me about how they are privileged that their husbands do not want them to work.
One claims that her husband wants her to have a luxurious life and just relax and rest. Another feels her husband just wants her to stay at home and enjoy cooking. Some feel that their husbands just want them to look after the children. Some other women look at these women and feel that they are so lucky and fortunate to have such loving and caring husbands.
My question to these luxurious women is that then why did you educate yourselves? Why did you painstakingly study? Is your purpose in life to only be dependent on your husbands for money? Do you not have any skills that can be utilized? What about teaching and showing others what you have learnt.