Southasia Institute of Advanced Studies (SIAS) organised a blog-writing workshop on October 10 2022. Mr. Ramesh Bhusal, the Nepal Editor for the Third Pole and an environmental journalist based in Kathmandu was the facilitator of the workshop who shared his ideas on effective creative writing. Researchers and development practitioners from SIAS, ForestAction, NIMS College and Aria Solutions participated in the workshop.
Ms. Gyanu Maskey, Program Director, SIAS welcomed all the participants, thanked for sharing the blog pitches for the workshop and started the program formally. The session was then handed over to Mr. Bhusal who stated that writing is an opportunity and an art. He encouraged the participants to compile the stories so that it will be easier in the plot weaving process. Mr. Bhusal mentioned that ambience of the place is also essential to get the natural feel while writing. The writer can merge deeply in the process and can draft the story. Mr Bhusal also stressed the necessity for making the mind free for critical writing. He further added that the researchers could link their site-specific research findings into broader context while writing a blog piece. He emphasized on lively writing and identifying the audience for proper communication. He suggested following the inverted pyramid during the writing process. There is a difference between academic writing and blog writing citation and he highlighted that a lot of patience is required in the writing process. Mr. Bhusal stated that writing is an opportunity to broaden the knowledge and all we need to do is to read more and write more! “The more you read, the more ideas you’ll gain to write“, he stressed.
Finally, Ms. Maskey thanked Mr. Bhusal for his insightful and energetic session. Ms. Maskey said that researchers could allocate a day during the field visit for writing process to get the natural flow of the story, as they do for the paper framing. She said that as the framing or key themes are already available, the next steps can be taken to develop a draft. She said that discussions regarding the publishing outlets for the blog along with the feedbacks would also be done once the participants share the draft blog. She also announced that there will be a reflective workshop at the end of the writing process to share with each other’s experience in the blog writing and publication process.
