Pranali Patel's Blog

Advice to Writers  I chose to read and write about the advice to writing that many people have given. I personally found them very helpful as a new writer as I am learning everyday to write. It had been a while since I had to free write. Since I have been in college I have not free written. Last time I had to write was back in high school and even then we were asked to follow guide lines which made it some what easier to write. When there are really no guide lines the writer gets to be as creative as possible. I liked the advice from Mantel she s aid if you get stuck take a walk or nap or make a pie. You can pretty much do anything just do not keep looking at the the page. Do anything besides talking to people. I also like the advice of finding your optimum hour to write. That is when you best write so it will be the easiest to write at that time. I really like what David McCullough said. The hardest thing to make writing look effortless. Most things I have read seem so effortless

The Crab and the Crane I choose to read the Jatakas tales because I really enjoy reading short stories. Short stories have to be good when they start to get people’s attention so they keep on reading. The short stories have to quickly develop and form because there his not much time to grab the attention of the readers. This story got my attention when it first started because of the characters and because of the setting of the story. I could really imagine the story as it was going on. Another great thing about this short story us that there was a meaning behind it for the readers. The moral of the story shows how Karma works and how ‘what goes around comes around’. The Crane first seemed to be a good friend who wanted to help out the Fishes but then his true colors came out and we see that it was all just a show. He was being selfish and just wanting to kill and eat the fishes for himself. The Crane was smart because he first gained the fishes trust then slowly just started eating

The Measure of Rice  I choose to read Jatakas because I really like short stories. They have the best moral of the stories and I can learn how to create my own short story by looking at the ones I read. Short stories do not have much time to develop so they really have to start out good to grab the attention of the readers. The story is very valuable because it shows how greed can take over and really destroy you. The story started out by introducing an important character from the story. One of the main character, the king, shows greed to make a little more money then he was already making. He was not happy with what he was getting. He tried to fool people and get a valuer that was a peasant so he knew nothing about values. The king thought that this would be beneficial but it turns out it was not. Another nice twist in the story was the peasant that was called to be used for the king’s benefit turned out to also help out horse dealer by valuing the horses by the ‘measure of rice’

Three Young Women  Once upon a time three women lived in a small town in India. They were named Beautiful, Ugly, and Very-Ugly. One day they were all talking about how much they hated being in a small town. They were the only young ones left. Everyone else was old and did not mind living in a small town. Beautiful said to the other two, “Let’s leave this place and go to a bigger and better town. We will explore new things and make new friends. We will have an opportunity to live a better life.” The other two fishes were willing to go to a new city and see what will come of it. They were afraid of being alone in a dangerous city. They even told Beautiful that it might not be safe to go alone there. Even after warning Beautiful they all decided to go ahead and go to the big city. It was the first day in a new place. They did not know where to start or where they should go first. They started touring around and just going from one place to the next. All day went by and it was nig