Blogcritics Author: AVANTIKUMAR

Getting Published: The First Thrill, The Real Deal

AVANTIKUMAR — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 04:54:57 EDT

Having your first book accepted by a major publisher still packs a delicious thrill.
In today's world, when anyone can easily publish a work through the Internet, it still gives me a thrill to have a book accepted by a traditional book publisher.Though I have had other writings accepted (plays for radio, TV and journalism), this is my first book: a nonfiction self-help title called The Science of Happiness. United States...

Ugliness Is Skin Deep

AVANTIKUMAR — Mon, 5 May 2008 14:03:00 EDT

Ugliness is a learned concept, said my writing teacher Khambatta.
"Ugliness is a both a learned concept and skin deep," said Khambatta, one of my teachers while I grew up in London.I'd reached the ripe age of 11 and had started writing on a typewriter as yet another milestone of being serious about the writing vice. Admittedly, I started off with the idea of wanting to be a writer from an old UK TV series called...

Blundering My Way to Bliss

AVANTIKUMAR — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 12:50:51 EDT

Most people and opportunities for happiness will pass you by, with your full consent!
People have accused me of many things. The worst insult they have thrown at me is that I am a teacher. No way. I blundered all the way through to my bits of insight and inner joy. Not proud of it; just stating a fact. I am not getting any wiser in my everyday actions, judging by my continued fumbling at work and at play, but then confidence is an...

Announcement: Short-content feeds

Phillip Winn — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 12:00:00 EDT

Sunday, August 26, 2007, marks the switch of all Blogcritics.org article feeds from full-content to short-content. This is the result of several converging factors, and is unfortunately a permanent decision (as permanent as any decision can be on the web, that is). We are aware of all of the reasons that this is a Bad Idea, and we are aware that some of you will be quite upset about having to click on something to read the free content, and we're sorry. Unfortunately, despite great effort, full-content feeds are not currently economically viable. Two other factors are involved: full-content feeds have resulted in an unprecedented level of content theft, with BC content appearing on many websites, usually spam sites, without attribution or permission. This duplicate content causes a cascading set of problems, not the least of which is that search engines generally aren't favorable to duplicate content, and don't always guess correctly. Finally, our RSS advertising partner is strongly in favor of short-content feeds. We hope that you'll continue to subscribe to BC via RSS, and when an article grabs your eye, it's only a click away, still free on the BC website. Thank you for your understanding.

"You're in hell already, mate..."

AVANTIKUMAR — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 15:09:03 EDT

"You're in hell already, mate," John Barstow told me one April evening in 1998. It was in Victoria Station, London. We'd met for a quick drink before boarding Friday evening trains for the weekend."Let’s say that heaven and hell do not exist," I mumbled. "Except as - metaphors.""Crap," he said wisely.This was some years ago - and I had been a full-time writer of plays since university; then something happened. My emotional life exploded, while my creative urge imploded. I wanted to have nothing to do with feelings and with the writing of such.Barstow said, "You've just committed suicide. And that's a mortal sin, mate."I just been through three years of emotional hell - this won't be any worse; in fact, it might pull me back to life. I told him, inwardly - I feel divorced. "You can change your mind," he said.However, to write or not to write was no longer my question.Meanings of hellWhen I was a boy in London, one of my philosophy teachers, old Mr Khambatta did try and teach me some practical sense. Khambatta said, "Hell is created on many levels but is energised by fear. Fear and its opposite -- love -- are at the bottom of our actions; and reactions. Fear feeds competition."His approach and language was calculated to keep the attention of a boy in his teens. "Don't give me the crap about competition building strong vibrant souls," Khambatta continued. "Systems of competition in school breed psychosis, build empires based on slavery and exaggerate a misguided sense of separation." As I insisted on learning lessons the hard way, it was much, much later that I realised these things:Truth is: there is no one special on this planet, save the one spirit behind it all.Anyone being "special" or doing anything "special" is channeling the one spirit behind it all. This is why enlightened souls have such humility: they just know the truth; they did not do anything except realise they were vessels. The one life is infinitely creative, limited only by the clarity of each vessel through which it has to come.Specialness is a form of mental sickness, stemming again from fear.The power of love -- and I'm not necessarily talking about romantic codswallap, though even part of that relationship has its apparently pleasant phases -- is quite simply built on the reality of oneness: there is one life illuminating every thing, whether animate or apparently inanimate.And where do such thoughts come from? Fear stops writing. Love powers it. Natalie Goldberg's Writing Down the Bones is a must read for those writers who have lost their way and slipped into sterility.Resurrection in writingIt was a hot day in November, 1999, some years later, when hell started to disintegrate.On a beach in Langkawi, an island off Malaysia, a whole series of scenes suddenly leapt into my inner vision. It had been so many years since I experienced this part of the mind working that I thought I had gone temporarily insane. On that humid beach, sitting under palm trees with the high-pitched whine of insects, something had returned to life. Writing unfortunately does not stop wars suddenly. I disagree. Harnessing the right stream of thoughts at the right time in the right place brings miracles."Writing is survival," said Ray Bradbury, in his insightful preface to Zen in the Art of Writing, a must read for whatever kind of writer you want to be. If you are here to write, and you don't, you will die a kind of death. But once you resume writing, well: resurrection abounds.Put another way: you must stay drunk on writing so that everyday life does not destroy you.-- Letter from Malaysia, 21 August, writing in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

A practising writer and consultant from Britain, currently based in Asia.