In the cold, analytical light of day, rejection is a simple matter of a decision taken, but as the rejected, our reaction to it is very much an emotional one. If it weren’t, we’d scarcely need to think of how to deal with it, for there’d be a logical answer to it. In fact, there is; Not one answer, rather a bank of answers depending on the circumstances, but neither you nor I are likely to see it clearly in the emotional charge of it all. This makes it all the more important that someone lays out the analytical point of view for dealing with rejection. Emotional advice such as being yourself, picking yourself up from the purported disaster, and other such platitudes you can find plenty of on inspirational posters everywhere. However, once you’ve indulged in all the love, healing and angst you can (which I recommend if you find them helpful), perhaps you’d like to know what to do next.
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Branding and identity design has its universal challenges and those challenges are a little bit trickier when it comes to designing identity for an individual rather than a relatively faceless organisation. These considerations went into my recent logo design for a consultant, and as time has passed since and contact information had to be updated, it came time to implement the new logo into a new business card design.
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In the beginning, the idea was a simple one, to make a useful site. I always have written quite a bit on this blog about blogging software, content management systems and building websites, information I think is useful to many and surprisingly elusive in the flood of technical information online. I wanted to give all this information its own space where I didn’t have to worry about alienating my often non-technical regular readers. Then I came up with a name Content Deliverance and things got more complicated.

The melodramatic name worked well in my head, and in typical fashion, I decided that the site’s personality would come from the use of classic Biblical etchings and mythological illustrations that vaguely fit the theme of each post. When I finally got down to making Content Deliverance, I ended up creating a blog template from scratch and had convinced myself I’d make original illustrations for every post, illustrations tying the post to scenes from the grossly under-represented Indian mythos. This is how I ended up churning out some good, and some passable, Indian mythological illustrations in my vector graphics software of choice, Inkscape.
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When you sleep you dream of clouds, pink sunlight that sings aloud, and you revel in the warm cotton of dawn, not looking up but running on.

At the beginning of this year I started taking pictures of origami with my phone camera. Not counting scribbling, photography is my oldest love. I’ve been taking pictures since I could read and write, and it was always as a visual exploration rather than as a mere recording device of family snapshots. This long history means I am not quick to jump on to the latest photography bandwagons, which come up ever more often in the fast-changing world of consumer digital photography, so I did not sign up for Instagram even after I got myself a smart phone. Recently, however, I decided I could use Instagram the way I use Twitter, as a focussed project in turning out things regularly. This I have been doing and I just reached 50 photographs in my origami-picture project.
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When the first sea-creatures braved the shores of a primitive Earth and pulled themselves on to dry land, their attempts were probably not the prettiest thing to look at. They were still getting to grips with, and even inventing, the basic mechanics of locomotion with rudimentary limbs in the open air. They were aeons away from the grace of a gazelle leaping confidently through the grasslands, but eventually they’d get there, once they’d figured out which over-developed fin to push forward before the other, to manage some semblance of direction without the enveloping water.

As writers and new explorers of communication with the written word, we too are often merely getting by, more involved in the basic mechanics of language and expression than attempting grace. In time, as the mechanics of writing become second-nature and we can consign the nuances of verbs, clauses and grammar to a well-trained subconscious, we begin to wonder about grace and personality in what we write, and thus we set out to find our writing voice.

A writer’s voice is a sum total of many definable things, but in itself eludes simple definition. While mechanical structures like grammar and vocabulary, and patterns such as pace and tone can be pinned down in words to varying degrees, the writing voice is the emergent character that results from all those features, a personality, a certain cadence to our words and the ideas they weave. This general writing style in time becomes a writer’s most distinguishing mark in a realm where we all have the same words to work with. It also becomes the most powerful aspect of a writer’s craft because the non-analytical reader, the vast majority who read for pleasure, will pick up on the voice in your writing before they ever do your technique. Your voice is what they will learn to love or hate, admire or dismiss; Your voice in your writing is what the average reader will come back for.
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I received a spam comment recently that was masquerading as a request for writing advice. Not that receiving spam is a rare event, but this one caught my attention because it was completely coherent and asked a valid question. The basic question(s) were these:

How do you centre yourself and clear your head before writing?
Do you have any tips for getting started at every session? Since the first 10-15 minutes are often lost trying to figure out how.

Far be it from me to look a gift-writing-horse in the mouth, so I shall attempt to answer. Thank you, random spam person.
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Quirky facts become anecdote and eventually settle into legend. Among Indians of a certain age-group, such is the status of tour groups of middle-aged Indian couples, and families, that go on European holidays with the express comfort of knowing their tour-provider will arrange for familiar Indian food, and in some cases strictly prepared Indian food to very exacting religious norms, all this while marvelling at the old cultures of the West and their well preserved buildings. Some people go looking for the unfamiliar as achievement but never want to have to live with it, and why not, when they have the means of dipping into a foreign culture while remaining safely wrapped in the habits and conventions of their own? I think most human beings would make a similar choice if it was easy enough to insist on without embarrassment.

It’s not just middle-aged Indians who do such things; You will find plenty of Americans who will travel across the globe only to desperately seek out the local McDonald’s for sustenance. The excuse there is that McDonald’s food is safe compared to the unknown food monstrosities out there, which is no different than disapproving Indian Uncles and Aunties tut-tutting about not knowing what these foreigners put in their food and not wanting to find out. That is the more common form of seeking the familiar in the unfamiliar, a sort of culinary and psychological life-saver to be held on to desperately, so as not to drown in alien seas and swallow the unknown waters. There is another, however, and that becomes possible when you travel to unfamiliar places which are deceptively like the familiar. Those fringe cases of culture and experience twist your mind a bit, and give you ample opportunity to rediscover the familiar through new and sharpened senses. Finding familiar treats in unfamiliar lands is as much a comfort as it is an adventure down memory lane.
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