Tag: life

The Unwanted

Sometimes, we get so caught up in our own worlds that we miss the little things around us. Like in a flower show, all we see are well-watered flowers, settled in protective enclosures. But there are other stuff around that aren’t as noticeable. Like a broken twig, or a timid squirrel scurrying through dense feet.

It was quite the same when we went on a trip to Kodaikanal.  We stayed in a hotel with bountiful linen, wooden windows, and sumptuous meals enough to make anyone drowsy. And there was also the most beautiful scenery around us. Flowers of all kinds, huddled in bunches, and pruned to perfection. But there were a few extras as well. Little petals peeking through the rocks, braving the gardener’s sharp shears.

They were the unwanted, the ones the world could do without. They were the spares.

spare

You Won’t Be Read, and It’s Ok

Writing for a living is tough. Not everything you write will see the real world, and you have to be ok with it.

Becuase when it comes to writing for someone other than yourself, you have to say what they want to read or need to know.

There’s no darlings in professional writing. You don’t have to like what you write. If it works, it works.

And it’s hard. For someone who wants to write drunk and publish as is. For someone who wants to write just because she wants to write. It’s hard when a personal blogger starts writing for her company’s “business-class audience.” You’ll have to make sacrifices you don’t want to. Talk to people you’d rather avoid. You have to smile as you accept their pin pointing as sense — though, most of the time, it is.

Rework becomes your watch word. Deliberate word choices, phrases, and jargon become your world while a clever pun takes the backseat. Because, remember, remember, your audience isn’t pun(n)y.

An official “content writer,” has no balance. You don’t know where the “need for content” ends and where the love for words begins. It’s constant juggling between contrasting worlds, and it puts you off, it blocks the writer within, and scoffs at the crouching figure at work staring deep into her laptop screen.

But somewhere along the way, you realise it’s ok. Sometimes, someone who knows better will cut off most your content. It takes time to see the big picture, or think for the greater good, but you’ll see it. You’ll see that nothing matters more than seeing your audience satisfied. And, somehow, those sleepless nights of tapping away at the keyboard fades into thin air.

Then it’s yet another day at work.

What’s Life?

circus

Jump through a hoop

and walk a tightrope

pull off a jig on the side

laugh like you like it.

They toss you in the air

and jeer at your jest.

You hang on to a pole,

waltz through the vault,

it’s all about flexibility —

twisting to their humour.

You have your training,

in swinging and spinning

whether a club or your head,

you look like a buffoon,

part of the human zoo.

Life’s a circus, ain’t it?

Rework

I scroll through drafts

old rants, and musings

interesting, a few boring

so much of controversy

splashing enlightenment.

Perhaps I should rework,

rekindle dying flames.

People love old stories,

advice from grannies.

I could just rephrase

the title and the lines

No one would know

that I’ve reused words.

No one needs to know

of that great block

blocking my world.

Because none knows

it is that intimidating

to stare, sitting on a table,

at a blank page, unable.