Tag: LFW

Untitled – May the 12th

An untitled braindump.

A lot has happened in the last few days. And I mean a lot. From health scares to awareness of lack of money to getting stabbed in the back to taking the largest shot of my life to the decision to go to the mattresses. I wish I could write about all of it on a public forum. I know no one cares about it. I know that once am gone, all this is meaningless. I know all I can do is take lessons, give those to my folks and move on. So that.

Chalo, let’s write randomly about things that I am thinking about

1/ Ankita asked me if I could bring back LFW.

On a whim, I floated a form and I am gathering interest. Here. To be honest, I have mixed feelings about this. On one side, I get to write more. On the other, I am not sure if I have the energy or the time to do this.

In an ideal world, I would like to not worry about money and do all these things that enable others. But then we dont live in an ideal world.

2/ I am going to the mattresses.

If you know the meaning, great. If you don’t, well you dont. I am not explaining. But at this time, I am facing the biggest challenge that C4E has ever faced, after we became what we’ve become post COVID-19.

3/ Toto’s at Bandra

I went to Toto’s last night to meet some friends. It was a very very interesting meet. Multiple reasons

a/ I went there after like 15 years. The place is as buzzing, as expensive, as good as it was back then. I would love to meet the owners and learn about their story!

b/ While I was there, I realised that the best economic decision that you can make as a professional is to marry someone and bind your economic fortune with them. You may have an open marriage, you may not be lawfully wedded but once you start living AND EARNING AND SPENDING with someone else, you get to build an economic engine that in 20 years will give you immense wealth.

If you are in your 20s, find someone that is willing to “marry” you and you together build a life. The best-case scenario is when you can live together and limit your expenses.

c/ I realised I dont like traffic at all. I spent about an hour to go meet friends. I dont see the value in all that travel to meet folks. I know that I need to have deep relationships and community and all that. But I also know that all my energy gets sucked and drained in the commute. So that.

d/ All my friends there could only chat about LV bags, business class flights, Rolexes, sculpted bodies, curly hair and I dont know what all. I couldn’t relate to any of that chatter. A few days ago I stayed with a friend and his family and again the routine humdrum was about school, holidays in Europe and all that.

To be honest, there’s nothing wrong in that. This is what life is. May be I am a fool in chasing largeness – I dont even know what largenss could be. I mean all my friends have large lives – multiple houses, multiple sources of incomes, multiple holidays, multiple kids. And here I am, on the road again taking loans to make ends meet.

Lemme digress for a bit. I had decided that I would never take another paisa of loan. But in the last 10 days, I’ve had to take money twice. And the way things are I will have to take one more tranche towards the end of the month. Which is ok – this is a working capital loan, to be honest. But I need to be prudent enough to not lean on loans.

e/ I also realised yet again that I live a very unidimensional life. This is not new. And lately, I’ve been seeing signs of this all around me. Maybe I am seeking this only?

4/ Relationships

I’ve been thinking a lot about longevity and one of the tenets (apart from the usual suspects) is – healthy relationships. Of all kinds.

I suspect when you have great relationships, the stress hormones are not active enough to kill you. And if they are, the peace and harmony from these relationships would ensure that you dont die of stress.

So, I need to work on this.

In terms of relationships, in decreasing order of priority, I think we have the following kinds – romantic partners, parents, siblings, offsprings, friends, work colleagues, community, strangers and everyone else. Oh, and the most important is the relationship with self!

In my case, I think that the romantic partner one is the most fractured. I am ok with my parents (though they live away from me). I am ok with how I am with my sis, though I would like to be closer. The closest thing to my offspring is growing up fast and getting away from me. Sad but I can’t help it. And I dont want to inhibit her flight. Friends is something I need to work on. I have lately started to get more involved with friends from school and college (and I am struggling to be honest). I think I have a great relationship with my work colleagues. I am active in the community as well (work to honest, not locality etc). And I think I am ok with strangers – I operate from a place of empathy and trust. I assume everyone is good, unless they give me a reason to believe otherwise.

So, I need to fix these.

5/ The Village

All I do, all I am building, is this thing called the C4E Village. Right now it’s not a physical space but someday it would be. While that happens, I want to ensure that it does well. And I need to find a way to sustain it. And I need to protect it despite all odds. That’s it. Just writing this here.

Oh, the track of the day is this.

Over and out. See you folks next time!

FAQs for LFWc3 (Long-Form Writing Cohort 3)

A quick FAQ about Long-Form Writing Cohort where people get together and help each other become better writers.

UPDATE – 12 May 2024 – If you are here looking for C4, a lot of what is mentioned herein in still valid. Just that I will run C4 by myself. Read on…

Hi! 

These are some frequently asked questions about our Long-Form-Writing-Cohort 3 (“LFWc3”). Should you have a question that is not listed here, please send us a tweet. Our handles are listed below. 

Regards,
https://twitter.com/joshi_hemant_
https://twitter.com/pradx
https://twitter.com/saurabh
#LFWc3

Let’s get started!

What is LFW?

LFW is an attempt to create a cohort of people that love to write long form. And like with all such cohorts, you better write if you are here. And when you write, you MUST write long-form. Pieces that are longer than 2000 words. 

The obsession with long-form is only and only to encourage us to build a writing habit, and give each other a goal that is a little tough and yet achievable (you know, just outside of our comfort zone). This is where people shine the most! And now, it is your time 🙂

What would we write about?

You can write about anything, really. As long as each piece has more than 2000 words. These could be articles, essays, blogs, books etc. 

Of course, you may write poetry, as long as each poem is part of a compilation that goes beyond 2000 words! Dr Shruti wrote a lot of poetry last time around and actually published a book! 

When do we begin? 

You start by filling out this form (for C4, please use this link). This is your first step to showcasing your commitment to this.

We are gathering interest right now. Plan to start from the first weekend of Jan 2023. We would be together for the next 6 months, meeting each other each week. 

If we start, C4 would start from the first weekend of Jun 2024.

Who is this NOT for?

If you are…

  1. Unable to commit 4 hours a week for the next 6 months 
  2. Unable to commit to the time that we decide for each other. If we decide that we’d talk at 7, we will start at 7. Time is THE most important commodity! 
  3. New to writing. The cohort is best for people that have built a writing habit already and are looking for an accountability group to up their game. Think of this as an advanced-level writing class!

Time Commitment? 

You need to carve out 3-4 hours a week. Out of this, 2 hours for a weekly group call and another 2 for hour-long 1v1 calls with your two buddies. 

We hope to meet each other for the next 6 months, once a week. So essentially we are together for the next 6 months. 

Money?

The first two cohorts were free. We volunteered our time. 

This time around we are thinking of keeping a nominal fee to pay for running this cohort. In the ballpark of Rs. 1000 per person per month. Mind you, this is a ballpark. The actual number could be 500. Or could be 1500. Or even zero for that matter! 

Mind you, we would not take this home. We would use this money to ensure that the cohort runs smooth (paying volunteers, tools etc) 

For C4, I may look at asking for a refundable deposit that you would get back once you finish the cohort.

PS: In case you are unable to pay this fee, we are happy to waive this on a case-to-case basis. 

How many participants? What’s a buddy?

We would have no more than 16 people in this cohort. Anything more than this, managing, accountability and other things become uncontrollable. 

Each member will have two “accountability buddies” and one from the organizing team. The idea is to keep you and your buddies on track! 

The buddies would be allocated on the basis of your shared interests, geographies (we want people to meet), writing motivations (film writers need to be buddies with each other) and general whims of SG ;P

When do we usually do meetings?

  1. The larger, group meeting would be on the weekends, post 7 PM IST. On Zoom. Or any other tool. So, if you have an active social life on the weekends, you may not be able to participate. 
  2. The other is between you and your buddies. You choose the time / tool. But you must be on a weekly cadence.  
  3. We communicate with a Discord group. Discord. Not Whatsapp. 
  4. Since we are a remote-first cohort, we want your camera to be on when we are meeting. If you are camera-shy or live in a bad network area or the camera is broken, request you to NOT be a part of the cohort. 
  5. We would encourage in-person meetings as well. This depends on various factors – people in the same city, time, local travel etc. 

Do we keep a specific objective in mind while participating in LFW?

Preferably yes. 

You could be wanting to write books, film scripts, short stories, and even academic writing! As long as the output is more than 2000 words. 

Because this allows you to stay on course. Otherwise, it becomes a generic room you go to, enjoy the banter and get out. We want people to be a tad serious about writing. Like they said in Fight Club – if you are here, you better fight. We want people to be the man in the arena. We want you to participate. And not just be a critic. 

What happened in the last LFW cohorts? 

In the first cohort, we failed. More on a different post, on a different day. 

In the second cohort, one of us wrote and published a book, and another wrote a couple of drafts of her book. I found friends that I would probably last a lifetime! 

What language can you write in? 

Any language but prefer English / Hindi so that more people can consume your work. 

Assuming that these are the two most popular ones. Open to more languages as long as there is one more person that can comprehend that language and give you feedback et al 

More questions? 

Send me a tweet. I am at https://twitter.com/saurabh.

That’s about it! 
Thank you for reading. 
Team LFWc3 
PS: LFWc3 is brought to you by Hemant, Pradeep, Saurabh, C4E, PPP and friends. Show these people some love 🙂 

240621 – Morning Pages

Short post about lessons from a writing cohort that I am a part of. And a tiny announcement on the Aram Nagar docu.

8:09. Starbucks.

There is nothing special to report to be honest. I mean there is some updates in terms of work I am doing and projects I am involved with and all that. But they are more “work” than anything else and I try to stay away from work as much as I can. So I don’t know what to write.

Long-Form Writing Cohort

The highlight of the day has to be (thanks to my Roam for helping me review the day), the meetup of the LFW Cohort that I am a part of. Five of us made it to the session and each person had super insane updates on what they were up to. One of us has been able to monetize his writing by getting sponsors. Another’s writing is being read by a US Govt agency. There’s one who’s finished a couple of film scripts and is now ready to pitch. Then there’s me who’s wading into mediocrity with a million things and thousand projects.

However a couple of things became clear.

A. There is immense value in building a certain following on social networks. While you may engage with them a lot and it may suck time, the access you get once you have a following is insane. I have to do what it takes to build this.

I mean if it means getting fit and posting my transformation videos, I will do it! I have the discipline once I decide on something (these morning pages for example), just that I cant seem to get started (for multiple reasons – the time it takes to work out, my Hernia, my aversion to public places, inability to hire a trainer, lack of interest in an online Yoga teacher).

If not this, then hiring a cool kid to write a 1000 tweets from my handle and get known for that.

Basically, come hell of high water, I have to build a following!

B. Great things happen when you ship. Even if you ship less often. You have to work at a certain frequency and cadence but you ought to ship. And ship things others want. The world has moved from “do whatever consistently and a following would get built.”

It is now about building things, doing things that the world wants. You know, as Vivek calls it, need to find your founder-product-market fit! In simple language, what is it that you can work on that you are great at and why is it important?

I clearly need to work on this.

I mean I’ve been aware of this but never got around to work on it. And if I did, the attempts were more or less tactical. You know, to be done when I do not have other things to work on. Maybe this needs to become strategic. In the sense, put this higher up in the priority?

Let’s see.

Anyhow. So, before I move on, here’s the track for the day. The one I will play on loop as I write this. It’s Singh is King. Here…

The Aram Nagar Documentary

So, the documentary that Mudit and I are on, we’ve started to make progress with it.

Yesterday we put a call out for actors and others that know Aram Nagar to contact us. So far we haven’t got any interest per se, but let’s see where it goes. Here’s the post that we put out.

The audition call for the Aram Nagar Documentary with Mudit

In case you know someone that may fit the bill, please do reach out.

I guess this is about for the day. Apart from these two projects, there’s isnt much that I have to talk about.

Here’s the streaks…

  • Morning Pages / Meditations – 193
  • #aPicADay – 0
  • 10K steps a day – 0
  • OMAD – 0
  • #noCoffee – 0
  • #noCoke – 105
  • 10 mins of meditation – 0
  • #book2 – 0
  • Killer Boogie – 0
  • Surya Namaskar – 0

PS: These posts have started to get boring. Need to find a way to bring spark back to these. Let’s see how. #note2self

020421 – Meditations

Quick note on what I am upto today. And tomorrow. And the rest of the weekend.

6:23 AM. Woke up better than I woke up last night. I think it’s because I finally slept on a thin mattress on the floor, with an AC that works (but makes a hell of a noise). Some development for sure. Next up is to get the AC fixed so that the sleep is sorted. So a tiny win.

So, yesterday was exhausting af. I don’t think I have worked as much in the recent past. I mean I have. But it was another monster yesterday. Way too many calls (which is ok). Way too much thinking (thinking’s leaving me exhausted to a point that I never thought was possible). Way too many notes (which is a good thing). By the end of the day, I was way too tired to even talk about anything. I had the LFW meeting and I couldn’t focus or contribute to the only other member that made it there. It sucked 🙁

Also, the thing is, LFW was a cohort Hemant and I started to help each other write better. But the group is sort of dead. This is yet another attempt at the community that I failed to build. I need to learn how to do this. #note2self

Here’s what we wanted to do at LFW.

Moving on.

This weekend is a long one. However, I am taking it easy. Going for a drive. I love how the universe conspires. I wrote a piece about the drive yesterday and how I love it. And I am going again today. What else do you want in life?

I’ll tell you what.

Work.

Despite this being literally a one-day weekend for me (both Friday and Saturday would get exhausted with the drive), I have a few things that I need to work on. Lemme make a list. In no order.

  1. Review the month gone by. I haven’t done this in a while and it’s about time I get back to it. This was one of the most helpful things that I ever did but somehow stopped doing. Need to get back to it.
  2. Send an update to my mentors. I send this once every 2 months or so. Lemme know if you want to get a copy. The last few updates are here. I think I will open it to people and publish it on this blog as well. You know, living in public.
  3. Action SoG Grant. I have been sitting on my ass for a while now!
  4. Work on SoG Book. This has been pending for I don’t know how long. In the month of April, I will ship this for sure.
  5. Action WorkInGoa.com. Nihar from Clay gave me the idea and I’ve just sat on my ass for it. Need to act on it. I HAVE to have a foot in Goa!
  6. Finish work on all the open projects tasks for the week gone by.
  7. Mails from C4E domain are getting marked as spam on Gmail. Need to fix it. I can’t have my business email goto spam like that. I don’t know how to fix it. Maybe I need a new email server for mass mailing? Any techies around?

Wow, that’s a long list. And no, this does not include work on all the tasks that I am supposed to anyway do, you know, the ones I have saved in Asana!

So that’s the plan for the day. Time to move on getting some things ticked off the list. I do have a lot to talk about but I think I will skip that. Here’s the streaks.

  • Morning Pages / Meditations – 112
  • #aPicADay – 92
  • 10K steps a day – 0
  • OMAD – 0
  • #noCoffee – 23
  • #noCoke – 23
  • 10 mins of meditation – 0
  • #book2 – 0

No, no book2. Even though I promised. Daal Roti is taking precedence over the Cherries. Sigh!

140121 – Morning Pages

I talk about an important lesson I learnt – the difference between being a blogger and a writer. And the changes I’ll make in how I operate.

7 AM

Morning!

So, Rajesh Sir’s house is bang on Baga beach. And that’s a good great thing. And a bad. And that means that there is more hustle-bustle here than what an average road in Goa has. This means that I am not bored and there’s something to look at all the time.

And this also means that there are people at all times in all states of mind – sober, inebriated, happy-high, free, and so on and so forth. And that doesn’t auger well for someone that seeks peace of mind. No, I don’t. But others may. No, I am not complaining at all. Merely stating a truth. The fact that I can live here without worrying about basics is a blessing in itself!

So, yesterday was a mixed bag. Got some work done, got some mind-fuckery happening (even in Goa), spoke to some friends, met new people, passed on an opportunity to meet more people. But I think I am getting to understand how to go about it if I want to be known in multiple circles. A large part of it involves putting yourself out there and pimping yourself subtly. Truth be told, I don’t understand either – pimping self or subtlety. My life has been about muted peacocking. Lol, muted and peacocking in one sentence 😀 Lemme explain.

Muted. I don’t like the limelight. I don’t want to be seen. I don’t want to be known by the aam aadmi per se.

Peacocking. Without trying to be a PUA, the kind of clothes I wear and the way I talk and the way I behave, and the energy I have, all these make me stand out. Often as a misfit. Often as someone that people balk at. You don’t want to talk to someone that doesn’t care about how he looks. Someone that you don’t think of much of when you first lay your eyes on them.

That. Needs to change.

Talking of change there’s another thing I need to change in my personality.

This is something I intuitively knew and got reinforced in Goa. It is…

People want tangible things. Finished things. Finite things. They don’t respect a WIP.

For example, if you say you are a blogger, you get respect at, say, 6 on 10. On the other hand, if you say you are a writer and working on a book, the respect goes up to 9. Both are essentially the same but the subtle difference is in being a blogger and a writer. Just that the Blogger is a WIP. Ongoing. A writer is finite. Something that has been shipped.

People respect finished ones more than they respect WIP. We want to see output more than we want a process. The journey may be the reward for a few but most want a destination. The best part? They don’t care about the quality of what you’ve shipped. They just want to flip the pages of the book, see the URL of the film that is on Hotstar (not Youtube – youtube is WIP, an OTT platform is a finite destination). They don’t want to even do the work required to read or see. Just the signal that it’s out there is enough!

I have seen this in action in Goa like no other place. Probably because there are far less ‘finite’ ones than the ones that are ‘WIP’? In fact, this tweet that Krishna shared made this point beautifully well. And gives me further reinforcement.

I think that’s about it.

The lesson for the day is that being a finite is large in itself and will require me to make substantial changes in how I think and operate.

Here are two that I am making immediately.

A, rather than using all those adjectives that I think do an honest job of describing me (Jack of all trades, curious, marketer, podcaster, etc), I will introduce myself as a writer / storyteller. To hell with what people think about this. I am a writer first and then everything else. And that’s that. This is a sg5stars thing for sure.

Since this is new to me and not really my core personality, it will take time to implement. Do course-correct me if you see me doing otherwise.

B, the SoG series I’ve been writing for a few months? I will restart it at some point in time but I will also release the same as an e-book. And I have already initiated work on that. In case you want a copy, drop your email address on this form.

So that.

I also caught up with friends from the Long-Form-Writing Fans (LFW) Group. With the sketchy internet and a million mosquitos trying to sweep me away, the call was short and there was hardly any rasa but it was phenomenal to speak with them after this long. All of us shared our writing goals, issues that we’re facing (with writing and otherwise) and even spoke about our goals for this year. I wish we could meet more often. I wish we had more things to talk about. I think apart from Prak this set of people is going to be super-helpful as I go about book2.

Oh, I also met someone really interesting after ages on Lunchclub. Not to say other people that I meet are not worthy of a mention. This person was all of 27 and had so much clarity about life that I am left in awe. Apart from Shikha, I don’t think I’ve met someone with so much clarity ever. So that.

I think this is about for the day. The morning pages are now like a public journal but that’s ok. I think I like the idea of writing something to start the day. After all, remember what I said? I am a writer 🙂

Oh, here’s the #freewriting piece for #book2 for today. A writer has to write. Right?

Here we go…

Fire is probably the most misunderstood among all the things that nature made for us. Most people revere it. They don’t revere it really, they are merely scared of it. It is impossible to stop, is all-engulfing and all-consuming. It’s hungry. And it does not relent. The older Paul once told Mrs. Gomes that each fire is as distinct as people are. Each fire has a character. Each fire has a voice. The fires speak. Fire growls. And whispers. Fire can creep up on you silently. And fire can leap on you when you’re least expecting it. Like a person, a fire has its own life. From a spark to a tinder to a flare to a blaze to an inferno and to the biggest of them all, Sun. Sun is probably the only share that the fire takes that we truly respect.

Ok, that’s about it. Love this short para that I’ve written. Among the best, I’ve ever written. Don’t want to spoil it by adding more 😀 What do you think?

Day 6 – I don’t know what to write about…

A journal of sorts of how I spent my day on the 4th of Nov 2020.

But I will.

After all, I am on this trip where I am hoping to write every day for 30 days for 30 minutes. Today’s the 6th day. On the trot. Yay!

As the entire world awaits the outcome of the US elections with bated breath, here I am, in a corner of Mumbai, thinking about what to write about. While I do have a million things on my mind and I could write about those, there’s no one thing that’s popping in my head as a clear leader.

So, in absence of anything specific to write about, I will just do a recap of sorts for the day.

9 AM

I started my day with a meeting that got canceled. I was up all night, last night preparing for this meeting!

The spare time I had, I used that to speak to one of the people I talked about in yesterday’s post. I sort of “coached” him on productivity and gave him simple tips about how to do things better. The biggest tip I gave him was Paul Graham’s Maker Day and Manager Day. In case you don’t know about it, go read it. It’s worth its weight in gold!

10 AM

The other big thing that happened today is that a friend connected me with one of his friends and wants me to give gyaan on effective notes. Notes is another thing that happened to me just because I wrote a post about it. The post went to a lot of people and some of those implored me to “teach” them the methods. And when I did talk to them about the methods, they seemed to enjoy it!

So, a clear case of how the work you do in public has unintended consequences! The lesson for you? Do more public work!

1 PM

Next, I met a friend for a coffee (and I had green tea) and he gave me dope about, well, me!

He told me things about me that I could not see and yet everyone around me could! You know, things that you don’t know that you don’t know?

If I talk from the lens of Johari Window, he showed me my Blind Area.

It was quite a revelation. He actually pointed out things that I was clearly unaware of. And these things are deterrents, to say the least. And I need to clearly work on those. I also need to clearly work on not using the same word in three consecutive sentences.

10 PM

Lastly, I just finished a meeting with my writing group. We met via Twitter and we try to help each other with writing.

In fact, this series of posts is actually an outcome of an idea that someone threw at me in the group. No, my notes don’t have that person’s name. Good that I don’t. The kind of writing that am creating, I am so embarrassed!

1137 PM

So yeah, I think this is it for the day.

Again, this is not one of the best posts I’ve written. But I wanted to get the words out of my system. And I wanted to write for 30 minutes. I think with this summary, I’ve done both. And that means, its an over and out from me.

Take care!

This is part of the ’30 posts in 30 days’ project. This was Day 6. Other posts are at 3010, 3110, 0111, 0211, 0311