Upturned Archives

UPTURNED ARCHIVES

Upturned Archives is the place to come to, to find a collection of this blog’s best posts so far. Here I have listed those posts from my blog that really excited me when I hit that intimidating ‘publish’ button, or posts that were received very well, and I’d like to show you what others have liked here on Jai Vyas Writes. This also gives you an idea about my way of writing, and who I am, ultimately. These posts are from multiple categories and I have tried to list the best from each category.

Lay thine eyes upon this equivalent to a peek into my mind.

FICTION

The Traitor Series – The Traitor is an ongoing crime/mystery fiction story that I’m working on. The idea came to me about a year back and I sort of made it up as I went along. I know that’s not how fiction is supposed to be written but it was fun, I wrote and published the first five chapters here, and its been a long time since that, but I’m still not done with the sixth chapter. Do check it out, I guess its my best and longest piece of fiction so far.
The Key – Again along the lines of crime fiction, I’ve loosely taken inspiration from a Daily Prompt on The Daily Post. I also linked it to a fiction event and got some pretty good feedback for it as well.
The Incidental Phone Call – Crime/mystery fiction (again, I know) about an investigative reporter and a case he’s working on and how a random coincidence, if you believe in that sort of thing, turns things upside down. This one, I feel has a good amount of everything I would want to have in a fiction piece: humour, suspense, good description, and something that ties everything together.
What’s in a Surname – The most recent of my fiction pieces, this one’s about a sniper who takes on a false identity to carry out a job. Its about family, and survival.

NON – FICTION

ON LIFE AND WRITING

From Your Sister With Love – About an assignment I had in college. Just a basic letter writing assignment but I really liked what I wrote so I posted it here as well. Apparently readers like it as well since it was the most read and searched for post on my blog in 2014.
On Society, Prejudice, Judging and Introversion – A full-on rant about society and how prejudiced and judgmental it is, in general, towards introverts and how very few really understand what they really are. I don’t do rants very often since I kinda think things through, and I feel that topics like this often have greatly divided opinions and its not worth getting drawn into that kind of sensationalist world. But this one kinda just happened and the response was understandably not great, but that’s expected and I don’t really care.
Writing’s Easy, Said Nobody Ever – This one came at a time when I was having a lean period, didn’t have a lot of material in my head to write something. Basically about inspiration, how difficult it is to find some, and about writing.

ON SPORTS (MOSTLY MANCHESTER UNITED)

Resurgence – Being a Manchester United fan, I thought of interspersing my regular posts with a few about United here and there. I know that a very few people are interested in reading this kind of stuff but I like writing it so I went forward with it. Resurgence is about what I thought could have been a turnaround in fortunes of the Manchester United Football Club’s 2014-’15 season when they drew 1-1 with Chelsea FC, thanks to a late Robin van Persie equaliser.
On Bad Decisions, Tailspins and Oxygen – In this one I’ve incorporated two sports – cricket and football – and one team from each – the Indian national men’s team, and Manchester United respectively – around a central idea of taking breaks, taking stock of what you have, taking a breath of fresh air, and trying to break a bad run of form.
Red on the Horizon – This one was written after a run of games that saw Manchester United completely turn around their season that was seemingly going from bad to worse. There was no sense of identity to the team, no inspiration, no life in it, but then it all changed, albeit it didn’t last as long as most wanted it to.

COFFEE UPDATES

Coffee Updates are basically my way of getting all my readers (that includes you), up to speed about what I’m doing these days. Its a casual way of letting them know what’s going on in my life and in my head, over a virtual cup of coffee. I feel its a great way to really connect with people who read what I write.

Since there’s not always much to tell, Coffee Updates don’t have a regular frequency as such but I think I’ve done it so far about once every two to three weeks. You can check out all my Coffee Updates by clicking here.

AND MORE…

Apart from all of that stuff above, there’s a lot more to see and read here.

Firstly there’s Awesome Quotes, which started out as a way for me to post my favourite quotes here. I love quotes, because they say for you, what you don’t want to, or can’t, or don’t know the right words for. They have a way of eloquently expressing your own thoughts and feelings. They have the power to really inspire you as well. So, through Awesome Quotes I posted a set of quotes, each based on a certain topic, every Friday. Later I realised I could use this to create a greater viewership and also make things more interesting if I turned it into an event where people could write something inspired by a quote that I post. So I turned it into that; it hasn’t had any response, really, and that’s kinda demoralising, but I always have hope.
Then there’s Blogging U(niversity) by The Daily Post. It is a comprehensive approach to writing and blogging (and photography as well, recently) where they teach you the A-Z of the aforementioned topics in a series of different online courses. I took 3-4 of those during my first year on WordPress and not only was it really helpful and insightful but also really, really fun since you get to interact with so many of the other wonderful bloggers taking these courses. You can check out the various assignments I had to complete in those different courses by clicking here.
FINALLY, there’s the various challenges and awards I was nominated for. I was nominated for a couple of Liebsters, Very Inspiring Blogger awards. Very recently I was also nominated for a 3 Days 3 Quotes Challenge, which is all very fun to do and it keeps you engaged with your blog and its readers.

That effectively wraps up what JVW has been about so far in the two years or so I’ve been blogging. I hope you like this little peek into this blog, and hopefully it makes you stick around! 😀

Catch you on the other side!