Sometimes words are desperate to come out of my brain. They are protesting inside and shouting at me that they will not rest till they are on paper. And sometimes, like now, there is nothing. Silence. Nata. Zero.
It is in this state that I am not writing but fighting. I struggle to find the sweet spot where ideas are translated into words, which string together to form sentences that combine into paragraphs. But in ‘Fighting with Writing’ that does not happen. Either the ideas or the words or both refuse to come out. Refusing like a stubborn child who wants ice cream.
This whole ‘Fighting With Writing’ thing makes me wonder, ‘Am I actually the one who is writing?’ When the words are coming ‘automatically’ is it me who is putting the words on paper or am I just a tool through which someone else’s stories, ideas, and words are oozing out?
When I am writing, almost automatically, I find myself doing fewer look-ups, less editing, and even fewer corrections. The whole piece just comes out and settles itself nicely on paper. Like when I wrote ‘Along Came A Virus’. The idea came to my mind when I was tired, had called it a day, and was on my bed hoping to sleep. But the eventual blog had other ideas. The words started shouting in my head, refusing to let me sleep. So grudgingly I came and sat on my computer and started typing. In just a few hours it was done. Posted and even published. It is in this state that probably the best of my work comes out. (Okay I know my best is not even good enough, but I am saying best of ‘my’ work, so the bar is set pretty low 😊 )
This fighting sometimes turns pretty violent, wherein, I am prepared to close the screen, toss the pen, and sometimes even delete my blog and everything I have ever written. ‘Oh how light would I feel if I did it’, I tell myself. So how to win the fight and write something of value. Something that at least I would like to read. Well all problems come our way for us to find a solution and in the process, become wiser. And not everything is in the books or YouTube videos. Sometimes we have to learn by experience.
So I summon the answers from the vast spaces in my mind (which are mostly empty, dull, and boring), and I come up with these points. These would become a solemn pledge, that I promise to follow whenever I am ‘Fighting With Writing’.
Write Anyways
Open a blank page and just write. It can be a journal entry where I write manually or an empty Word document. Just open it and pour whatever is in my head.
Follow a schedule
Write after Asr prayers for one hour. When the time comes, no matter what I feel, I will write. It can be garbage. It can be intense feelings. It can be curse words or life-changing philosophy. But it would be words connected into a sentence. And sentences connected into paragraphs.
I am not an impostor
When my mind tells me that I am an impostor or who am I to tell the world what is good and what is bad and how to live their lives? My reply would be. ‘I am nobody’. And I am not telling the world what to do, rather, I am telling myself what to do. If anything, it is a cry for help.
The guitar sobs
The violin weeps
I shout
And the world sleeps
Creativity has cycles
Creativity might ebb and flow. It might peak and plummet. I shall embrace the cycles. Till the time comes when the words just burst out of me.
Write I shall
Write I shall, to calm my nerves. To find a solution. To evade boredom. To make the most out of my time. Write I shall and I shall keep on writing.
In the end, I get some encouragement when I recall that this fighting with writing feeling, was also faced by a very accomplished writer whom I follow with dedication. The same doubt that my work is so bad that I should destroy it, was also faced by him. His solution was to ‘set a time for writing, prepare the pen, open the blank page, and sit. If nothing is coming it does not matter, just keep sitting till the writing time is over. I guess that is where my unimaginative mind came up with the pledges that I wrote above.
The accomplished writer was Mufti Taqi Usmani Sahab, whose works I have enjoyed since I was a teenager, and I was surprised that he can also be a victim of ‘Fighting With Writing’. But apparently he was.
So here I am signing off with a pledge to follow my pledge. Till next time. Chow.
At times words float and like clouds waiting to be together, the blessed rain to pour down on paper. A common feeling i can relate to.