Bloggy Howl, I have a Blog!

A sometimes serious, sometimes fun collection of my writings, readings and online activities...

Thursday, January 26, 2006

Clients and Professionalism

I have one client I'll swear by, come hell or high water. I do just one thing for them in a year and the money I get from them is just about okay. No great shakes. But the professionalism they display makes it all worth my while.

The client is Sun-N-Sand Hotel and I have been emceeing their in-house New Year bash for the last three years. The deal goes like clockwork. About a month before the event I'm called to meet the F & B Manager and asked to submit my quote. That done, about 15 days before the event I'm given a Work Order. No one in the organisation tries to prove their ability to write scripts or organise games. The event itself goes smoothly because the Hotel has everything organised and I don't have to put out fires at the last minute because some manager was trying to cover his arse and screwed up the programme in the bargain. About a week after the event, I'm given my cheque.

Contrast that with my latest experience with a corporate (let's call it XYZ). I was contacted to write a script, direct (rank amateurs drawn from the company pool) and stage a skit for this company that wanted to 'make a hit' with its American counterpart, whose representatives would be attending the programme. So I duly quoted, bearing in mind the amount of work I'd have to put in. Said company then began a game of "I'm not available to discuss this."

Sure enough, about a week after I'd quoted, I got a call from ANOTHER entity, saying there was a requirement for a script and direction of a skit to be staged by employees of a company. I was told the budget is Rs. x, said x being about 1/6th what I had quoted.

Mama didn't raise no fools, and I bluntly asked if XYZ was the company in question, to get a flustered "Yes" in reply.

Wakey-wakey, you silly corporates. You can't shop around in a one-horse town.

Deepak

Wednesday, January 25, 2006

Kala Ghoda Arts Festival Writing Contest

Just got news about the competition. Here are the details:

1. A reprise from last year, SMS Poetry : http://caferati.blogspot.com/2005/01/caferati-at-kala-ghoda-arts-festival-1.html

The basic rule is simple: your poem must fit into a single 160-character SMS.

For more details, prizes and the jury, please see
http://www.caferati.com/contests/SMS.htm

2. The second contest is a new one, Flash Fiction. Also known as
short-shorts or micro-fiction. The challenge here is to tell a story
within a very limited word count.

For more details, prizes and the jury, please see
http://www.caferati.com/contests/FF.htm

Tuesday, January 24, 2006

Blogging My Novel

Yep, I'm a-gonna do it. Oops, just did! I'm blogging my novel. Check out chapter one at
http://simplynovels.blogspot.com/

The blog is still raw (yay! you get to see it on day one!) and you still can't subscribe via bloglet, but you can via RSS (that's automatic - just click the orange thingamajig on the bottom right of your browser if you're using Mozilla Firefox).

Oh, and it's a Murder Mystery - the novel, not RSS.

Deepak

Tuesday, January 17, 2006

There's a new holiday on the calendar

Well, not yet, but if Dina Giolotto has her way, all you denizens of Cyberia will be celebrating a new holiday from this year onwards.

It's called WCAD, or Web Content Awareness Day and let me tell you, this woman has her priorities right. You can SEO your site to Kingdom Come but if you don't have the content to have visitors coming right back to your site agin' an' agin' an' agin', you ain't gettin' very far.

Follow her shenanigans at the official WCAD Blog.

Warning: associating with Dina gives you a highly infectious - but delightful - disease called ENTHUSIASM.

Deepak

Saturday, January 07, 2006

Okay, Who Made Me Daddy?

Used to be that my prime beef in life was that women told me I was the ideal brother; protective, caring, stuff like that.

Now they're saying I'm the ideal dad.

Okay, who stole my sexuality?

Oh well, at least they aren't saying I'm the ideal Mom. I'd hate to talk to a 13 year-old about menarche.

Moms get my vote as the bravest human beings, ever.

Deepak

Sunday, January 01, 2006

Get Scrooged!

I guess I'm officially Scrooge.

I hate SMS New Year greetings. Or even SMS Christmas greetings. SMS birthday greetings are okay. They probably aren't part of a mass-SMS.

I've been deleting "Happy New Ye" (that's what my mobile displays as the header to each New Year message) all day long. I'm not interested in who's sending me those messages.

You wanna wish me? Call me. Email if you can't call. Best of all, visit. You'll get some cake and probably hours of scintillating conversation.

That said, I don't believe in New Year's. I don't believe in birthdays.

When you die, it isn't a factor of the number of days from your birthday or New Year's. So why bother?

Every day is the first day of the rest of your life.

How many days since you got Scrooged? Now, THAT's significant.

Deepak