writing | On My Canvas

Writing the First Draft of My Travel Memoir, Journeys Beyond and Within…, While Traveling

the author priyanka gupta writing the first draft of her travel memoir Journeys Beyond and Within with a computer in front of her and a window beyond

Writing the First Draft of My First Book, a Travel Memoir, in Pondicherry, Kolkata, and Siliguri

This post on writing the first draft is the second one in my larger effort to share the entire process of writing my first book, Journeys Beyond and Within…. I would suggest to first read: How I Started Writing My Travelogue, Journeys Beyond and Within….

The publisher needed book ideas, and when we had ideas, she needed chapter skeletons. So, all the possible chapter titles we could have in the book. This is for them to confirm if we synced over our understanding of the memoir. For two months we went back and forth, discussing what I could expect from the publisher and what they would need. Some major terms of the contract, such as no advance, 8.5% something royalty, etc., were told to me. I thought those are things we will discuss when we come to the book. For now, I have a book to write.

feature a girl holding a book called Journeys beyond and within surrounded by many copies of the book in a home. the book is a travel memoir the girl is the author of the book. book cover is deep green and has a beautiful image of the same woman sitting in a boat going into a mangrove forest

How Did I Get the Idea of Writing My 1st Book, a Travel Memoir, Journeys Beyond and Within…

My first book has come out. Today I want to talk about how I got the idea of writing a travel memoir while I was traveling with my partner in our car with all our stuff in it (now four years and counting).

Travel and personal growth book Journeys Beyond and Within Mockup in the forest with a river like path leading into the deeper woods symbolic of how our journeys lead us deeper into the world and ourselves along with the text available on Amazon worldwide written

the author standing in beautiful mountains with arms open embracing her long writing and travel journey

Seven Years as a Full-Time Writer, four of which I have spent on the road

On My Canvas turned seven in August. I couldn’t publish a post on its anniversary. As I’ve repeated in my newsletter Looking Inwards, a big project kept me busy. Soon that project will be out in the world and see the sun. Until then, I’m here to write about these seven years of full-time writing.

Along with the blog, I have freelanced, written poems, penned down stories, and so on. I’ve been on the road for four of those years, with all my things in the car. Yeah, my partner has been with me, too. I’m sure you have read about our itinerant journey in this massive post.

on the road 1 drying clothes on rolling mountains near a road himachal pradesh

36 Months as an Itinerant Writer: What It Means to Live On The Go Table of Content [TOC] Introduction January 5′ 2024 Bangalore Here I’m in a hotel in Bangalore, writing this narrative and wondering why I feel so cold and why am I so uninterested and unenthusiastic about everything. I have stayed in hotel rooms …

a boat parked at the edge of water used as a feature image for six years of my personal growth and travel blog on my canvas

Six Years of My Personal Growth and Travel Blog On My Canvas The past six years have been important to me in many ways. In them, I not only wrote on this blog and brought it to where it is today: an infinite source of inspiration, hope, and ideas for me and, hopefully, a peaceful, …

5 Years of My Personal Growth and Travel Blog On My Canvas Thank you for coming along on this journey with me and supporting me always. If I have learned one thing in these five years, it is that the joy of creating should be enough. When we work hard and persist, we arrive at …

Vincent_van_Gogh Self-Portrait for vincent van gogh letter to theo on courage-perseverance-artists-life small.jpeg

Letters From Van Gogh The celebrated painter Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) regularly wrote to his brother Theo, his ardent supporter and friend. Out of the hundreds of letters by Vincent van Gogh, the Vincent van Gogh organization has put about hundred on their website. The book Ever Yours: The Essential Letters contains a broad selection of …

What Makes Writing Good and Some Principles of Effective Writing

What is Good Writing?

We write the best when we write to understand our ideas and opinions, not to publish. Much of our beloved writer Woolf’s work (her diaries, Street Haunting, a Room of One’s Own) reads like her efforts towards self-understanding.

Good writing shows the meaning of all this without any judgment and scorn.

Best Articles Published During On My Canvas’s Fourth Year (August 2020 — August 2021) My blog On My Canvas just turned four. Congratulations to me and to all you brilliant readers who give me a reason to write every day. Read the above link to know about the indefinite travel journey I’m on, another big news, …

walking on mountains in gagal near mashobra shimla himachal four years of blog celebration.jpeg

Celebrating Four Years of On My Canvas – Learnings and Updates

Phew!

It has been four years since I published the first article on On My Canvas. From then on, these four years have been a non-stop roller-coaster ride. From the first year of impenetrable determination but absolute ignorance to helping out other bloggers from my two years of blogging journey, and the third year of accomplishments, I’ve come a long way.

The journey started with writing. But every artist needs an audience. I want to thank you all — my beloved readers — who have helped me make the blog the meaningful resource it is. Though I know On My Canvas has to reach a lot more people, I really appreciate the love and support I’ve received so far. At least, I have not been hit by spoiled tomatoes or stinky eggs.

So thank you!

This piece is different from usual travel guides. I wrote this narrative while exploring Mashobra, Shimla. In the write-up, I speak freely about my writing journey. You are taken to the nooks and corners of an itinerant writer’s life who manages her work on the go.

Hope you enjoy the reality.

Oh, I have mentioned all the things I did in Mashobra throughout the piece, and you can find a list of them at the end too. Or go to the places to visit in Mashobra Himachal Pradesh now.

Virginia Woolf A Room of One's Own quotes feature image full of flowers

Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own Quotes—Wisdom on Writing and Life

Virginia Woolf was once asked to speak about women and fiction.

Woolf wandered the streets of London, sat by the riverside, pored over shelves full of books in the British Museum, went to luncheons, and considered the then state of literature. While working in a constricted space in that London where women weren’t even allowed to walk on turf paths in colleges (only men and students could), Virginia created a masterpiece on why there were limited women writers and even more limited writings by them.

Woolf delivered the lectures in October 1928 at the women’s colleges of Cambridge University. Published in September 1929, A Room of One’s Own is an essay based on those lectures.

Woolf went back to the works of Proust, Shakespeare, Emily Bronte, Jane Austen, Aphra Behn, Charlotte Brontë, George Eliot, Kipling, Keats, and many more known and unknown writers to understand the truth. She read fiction written by women and studied her contemporaries’ books. She contemplated why the writing of men scorned women and if women were writing good fiction.

In the essays, Virginia emphasized — while showing her detailed thought process — “that a woman needs money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.”

In addition to being a seminal work on feminism, A Room of One’s Own is an infinite pool of wisdom on writing and life. In the essay, Virginia Woolf argued passionately and statistically about how cultural, spiritual, and financial restrictions may limit our creative freedom.

Given the essay has so much to read into, I will only delve into the lessons on life and writing that Woolf was so benevolent in sharing with us.