I just made a century today. I raise my pen like Sachin's bat, and smile looking upwards.
I raise my broom like Jyotsna bai of my post, and pointing it at the room full of folk, say, "Memsaab, maine kar dikhaya."
I feel like dancing like the mad Mawali, put down my Mundu like the famous Mallu and exclaim, "Shundor," as if it were that lovely Bengali lass.
You guys did it. Read my every post. Prodded me on.
I owe it to you.
And to think I wanted to quit at twenty!
But as I think of Writer Babu, I realize one vital thing's missing!
Criticism!
Here, I mean a dose of healthy criticism given in a gentle way. Surely there are flaws in some of my write ups. I really wouldn't mind someone telling me furtively or even openly, "Hey, the thought was good..but you see, you could still make improvements in such and such areas."
Let's not lash out brashly at someone who differs from our view points.
But, yet, if we just keep praising, without a fine balance of some healthy criticism, we'd produce writers egoistic and utterly unable to handle any negative feedback from readers outside this purview in the near future.
There are articles so beautiful and flawless. I'm not talking of them. But we need to point out the punctuation mistakes, grammar errors or whatever in other ones, in a very meek way.
Then, I think our Babus will be on their way to some real, worldwide critical acclaim.
With awesome reviews from the world's greatest critics!
Comments (13 so far )
For the criticism, there is this anonymous remark. You can criticize directly to the author, I do it sometimes when I feel there is a need.
But what had been missing is the long ago planned feature /option for the author to ask for a literary feedback. One would be able to raise a flag like "hey guys come on and tell me where I can improve".
Usually I make a lot of spelling and grammar mistakes and I know it so I would not ask for it. But someone who thinks that they want to improve their writing skills can surely ask for it because there are so many great critics among us.
I will make it available as soon as the book writing feature is made live. It has been a very awaited feature for me too. I had promised some of the writerbabus about it earlier, but was not able to fulfill this due to lack of time.
The to-do list is long and am on it. Hold on and keep writing ... :)