Tag: writer’s block

Writing When you Can’t

I’m in the middle of a dry spell. I can’t write. I’m stuck.

But I’m guilty too. I know the block is real but I also know that it can break — if you hit hard enough. And that’s what I’ve been trying to do.

I’ve been writing random stuff, both long form and short, trying to get through to that point where words would just flow like a melted candle. Not happening though. I spent about four hours writing one of my recent posts. It was less than 400 words. And there was a time when I wrote an average of 1600 words in three hours.

It is real. I am blocked.

But I’m trying, and that’s what matters. After all, what am I if I don’t write? It’s the only thing I can do, the only I want to do, and the only thing that pays for my lunch. So what would become of me if I don’t write?

And that thought terrifies me more than anything. It chills my bones to the core that I can’t sleep without the guilt gnawing at my chest. I can’t sleep without writing something. Even if it’s not worth a reader’s time, I wrote.

After all, having something to work on is better than not having anything at all. Don’t you think?

I Fell in Love with Writing. Again.

I love my life. Because I write for a living, and writing is my passion. Sometimes I write good stuff, and sometimes crap I’m not proud of.

I fell in love with writing.jpg

Whatever I write though, I edit. People say crisp sentences are strong, and have a stronger impact in the reader. And that’s why I taught myself to “kill my darlings.”

And during one of my self-editing sessions, I fell in love with the language all over again. Because I learnt an important lesson: Longer sentences can be strong too.

I had this sentence.

Writing is one thing technology can’t conquer, because writing is human.

My internal editor went berserk, and we ended up with this.

Writing is human, and technology can never conquer it.

At first, both sentences made perfect sense to me. And then I read and re-read them aloud. And that’s when it hit me.

Everything about these statements was different.

Writing is one thing technology can’t conquer, because writing is human.

The sentence starts with “writing”. That says writing is important. And then it says why writing is important. Because it’s the ‘one thing technology can’t conquer.’

It’s ‘the one thing.’ That’s to say, writing is beyond all things technology can conquer. We acknowledge the power of technology, but declare writing is more powerful. And why is writing so powerful? Because, ‘writing is human’.

When you connect writing with being human, it’s clear that technology isn’t. It’s emphasising the obvious. But at the end, writing seems in the better light, because we can relate to it as human — that it’s the one thing unhuman technology will never conquer.

There’s emotion in this sentence. There’s human.

And then there’s this.

Writing is human, and technology can never conquer it.

The sentence, again, starts with writing. But, instead of a period there’s a comma — a pause as if we’re waiting for something important — and then comes the phrase, ‘and technology can never conquer it.’

I read this line, and realised: I had combined writing and human in one phrase, and added technology in the immediate next. It had deteriorated the power of writing which was evident in the previous version. The emphasis, now, had shifted to the word “technology.” But as a reader, I’d be reading out ‘technology can never conquer it,’ in just one breath — not a breath-taking line.

I had confined the most important part of the sentence to the first line, and made it sound bland. With the comma, I had brushed aside the human element in writing, and focussed on technology instead. And that had made the whole sentence more of an observation than an emotion.

Sometimes, we say things in an impulse, in an emotion. And sometimes, this spontaneity needs much editing before anyone sees it. But in some odd cases, we just over-edit. That’s what happened to me.

I wrote, I rewrote, I read, and re-read my words. And when I saw the difference, I felt a rushing love towards the English language. How can a language be so beautiful, and so complicated at the same time?

To Write

To write is —

to accept your right

to write, and write until

they accept you’re right.

It’s Not for All

To write is —

to trick yourself,

into believing you can.

to show weakness,

and persist inspite of it.

to welcome shame,

with wide arms and smiles.

to string words,

that end up stringing you.

Writers Need to Write

Warning: Contains no (intentional) philosophy.

writers need to write

I’ve been writing for a bunch of different audiences for a while now. And I realise why a writer needs to write for herself.

We know: Writers write.

But to whom?

Most often than not, writers write for someone they don’t know. In case of a blogger, the audience is their readers.

But for a writer working for a corporate, the audience is much wider, ranging from tech experts, to teachers, and even doctors. And oftentimes, the writer is so focussed on conveying a point to so many people, that she forgets that there’s reader within starving for attention.

When we write, we talk. We convey out thoughts to another person in such a way that we hope they understand. But do we even understand ourselves? Do we ever feed our own soul?

When we’ve been writing for so long for others — to meet criteria that fit external causes, to write in a way that others would agree or appreciate — that we lose our sense of personality.

We become writers who write what needs to be written. In other words, we write whatever we need to, to get the point across. Or, being honest, to pay the bills.

What’s then, the difference between someone who chose a professional career because that pays more and a writer who chose to write because she wanted to write?

If a writer is to survive (soul-wise), she needs to write something other that what others tell her to write. A writer needs to write imperfect prose. Because no one who writes for themself cares how it reads, it’s all about communicating your deepest desire; not just getting the right tone, the right call to action, and the perfect sentence length to match the design.

And sometimes, a personal journal is the way to go. Think about the days when you could just go, “Dear Diary, Jane was mean to me today…”

There’s something reassuring about writing to yourself. Because when you write to yourself, you write for yourself.

When you just let go of all the restrictions of a writing job, you understand there’s a whole world of ways to say the same thing. It gives you a shift of perspective your narrow-minded job would never approve of.

And that’s the beauty of it. When you’re just writing to make yourself smile a little wider each day, you see that it doesn’t matter what others think of your writing. It doesn’t matter that the word choice is a little awkward or the pun is too abusive, or, that your sentence has no emphasis at all.

Because when you write for yourself, you’re free to write.