Blogging, Guest Posts

Void Thoughts and Reflections

Today’s post is very special. I am in conversation with the prolific blogger and author, Vinitha Dileep. Her bio is as interesting as her musings. Let’s say hello to her and get to know her a bit more. We are online friends and yet to meet in person but after reading her poems and stories I feel like we’ve already met 🙂

INTERVIEW

“An IT Professional, an author, an accidental blogger, a lover of words and a recent self-care addict. I love stringing words together, which I lovingly call a poem. I’ve been blogging since 2008 October, but I’m actively seen in the blogging world only since 2014. ” – Vinitha Dileep
Vinitha Dileep

Q1. Hi Vinitha, please tell us a little about yourself.

I’m an IT Professional, an accidental blogger, a lover of words and a recent self-care addict. 🙂  I love stringing words together which I lovingly call my poems. I’ve been blogging since 2008 October, but I’m actively seen in the blogging world only from 2014. I have two blogs – Void Thoughts, where I write poems and fictions and Reflections, where I talk about everything else.

 

Q2. How did you become a writer? Share a bit more about Void Thoughts.

I always liked to write, from the time I was a kid I used to write down small verses on pieces of paper, mostly the last page of my notebooks were filled with such scribbles. As I grew up, the length of these scribbles grew as well. I had lost many of my random writings during the moves from home to college to the workplace. And when I got married and shifted to the US, I came across blogs and thought that it would be a perfect place to document my poetic outbursts. And thus Void Thoughts came into existence.

 

Q3.  What is the ‘USP’ behind Your Blog, Void Thoughts, and when was it born?

Void Thoughts is a way of collecting my random poetic excursions. So Void Thought’s USP is the creative energy you will find there. Honestly, I’ve never thought about my blog’s USP, but now that I am thinking I can most certainly say it’s the collection poems that make Void Thoughts unique.  🙂

As I already mentioned, my blog was born as a safe space to collect my random scribbles and nothing more. On a not so cold October afternoon in 2008, I created this blog in blogger and that was that. It took another 6 years for me to realize that there is more to blogging than as a document saving platform.

Q4. How and where do you get your inspiration for your blog posts? Which is your most famous/shared post?

My inspiration to write poetry is mostly from nature. I observe a lot and it helps in triggering these poetic encounters. The most shared post would be this one which I wrote for Write Tribe Festival Of Words in 2017, naturally, you participate in a blogging challenge the posts during that time would perform better.

 

Q5. Tell us about the kind of audience you have. The best comment you have received on your blog post?

I would like to believe that my readers appreciate my poetry. They always leave positive and encouraging comments and my friends in real life who don’t comment on the blog tell me personally that they like what I write. It’s always motivating when you get such feedback.

The best comment has come from many readers – when they say how much they loved the poem in their own heartwarming way, it’s always the best comment. Once I happened to read a comment made by a blogger friend on another blogger friend’s post mentioning my poem and how much she loved it. I was totally blown away reading that. It’s comments like that which comes from the heart, not for the sake of commenting, that reinforces my faith in me.

Q6.  In the age of Netflix, Hotstar and Amazon Prime, how do we encourage people to read more?

My 2-year-old was not into reading when he was around one-year-old. With my first born, we introduced him to reading picture books from around when he was four months or so. Though we did the same with my second one, he wasn’t interested in reading at all. But we kept the books around and now around the time he turned two, he started to get interested in books and reading them. Now I am exhausted reading “Brown Bear, Brown Bear” and “How do Dinosaurs say I love you? ”. Introduce kids to books from an early stage. And keep introducing new books and read to them. They will develop this new love to read and you will get to experience a wonderful bonding moment that will last forever. As an adult developing a love for reading would be difficult with these many video streaming channels available.

 

Q7. Tell us a little about your creative processes? How often do you post? What is your favorite form of writing?

My creative process changes from time to time. Of late, I work amongst noises from the TV, my kids, and other things. It’s a challenge to find quietness among these distractions and focus, but once that is achieved I get into a creative flow. I started with writing to prompts hosting linkups on different blogs in the beginning. I used to publish at least 2, sometimes 3 posts per week. Now if I am able to publish one post a week I am happy. My favorite form of writing is poetry, always.

 

Q8. What are the pros and cons of blogging? Is blogging all that you thought it would be?

When I started to blog actively in 2014, I found the blogging community on the world wide web which stayed hidden from me for quite a long time. I was hooked instantly. The people I met, bloggers, they were nice and interacting on my blogs even though I was extremely new to this. I didn’t even know how to comment. Now I have a lot of friends from this blogging world. So for me, the pros of blogging are the community feel, the help which is delivered always without any reservations, the interactions with like-minded bloggers and the feeling of belonging.

The cons I have to say is had I stumbled upon blogging now I wouldn’t have dared to take it up as I see the scene changing rapidly. Now it is more about the number of followers, views, brand collaborations, becoming an influencer and all those rather than writing for the love of writing and connecting with like-minded people. The one evergreen con is plagiarism which was there always.

 

Q9. What would you like to share and suggest to our readers?

I took a plunge in 2014 to trust my gut and went ahead and started to write and publish. Rest just happened. Take the step you want to but you are afraid of because of the reasons you don’t exactly. And read more, without readers this journey isn’t much fun. 🙂

Thank you,Vinitha, for sharing your story on my blog. We loved reading all about Void Thoughts, wish you and your blog tons of success and many more readers 🙂 I am  a fan of your writing and your poem, A Torn Page, touched my heart.

 

Sulekha Rawat

2 thoughts on “Void Thoughts and Reflections

  1. I thoroughly enjoyed answering all the questions, Sulekha. It was truly an honor to share my blogging story here. I am so happy to know that you like my poems, Sulekha. You know, the feeling is mutual. 🙂 Thanks a lot. 🙂

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