It’s not alcohol –
it doesn’t depress me.
It’s not weed –
it doesn’t oppress me.
It’s no narcotics,
It’s nicotine-free,
Just pure antibiotics,
that reeks only glee.
I feel it — the joy,
and a triumphant smile,
like winning a toy,
unknowing all the while.
I’m ready to disclose –
the secrets unbound,
for never will I close.
Words heal every wound.
Sylvia Plath.
There’s something about her, about her writing, about the way she manipulates words that attracts me again and again.
I can never get enough of her writing. There’s something different about her, something that reaches deep into the soul and taps at feelings you didn’t know you had.
Something that grabs at your ego and rattles it so hard that it goes all fuzzy and numb for a while.
There’s something in her writing that speaks to all; to the mischievous rebel, to the wounded heart, and to reincarnated feelings.
But of all her quotable words, for me, there’s one that speaks loudest. The one that rings in my ear, reverberates in my hallow ribcage, and my head, giving me some high.
I crave for the pain…
of the words hitting me,
blinding my eyes…
enlightening my being.
Words should be illegal.
There’s something finite about the word, “become.” As if you need to reach a level or a stage to become an official writer. As if there’s an achievable height in writing. As if conquering a peak, or a dream. You can’t dream of becoming a writer. That can’t be ambition. Because there’s no such thing as “becoming — a — writer.”
Anyone who claims they’ve become a writer is only losing their grip on reality. Because once you become a writer, you lose the ability — and the privilege — to be writing.
I don’t want to become a writer. Instead, I want to write — I want to learn to write better, and better — until I die. It’s one infinite loop. No one becomes a writer. Because writing is naught without rewriting.
Shakespeare wrote plays, but he never became a playwright. He wrote plays and sonnets until he died. And then, other people rewrote his plays and sonnets; they refined his writing to make it better — or worse; I can’t say for sure.
But I’m sure Shakespeare never became a playwright. Because if he had “become a writer,” we wouldn’t have the classics we do now.
So then, what’s the deal with “becoming a writer”? Who fixes the standards for a writer?
Agatha Christie is a writer. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is a writer. And so are Chetan Bhagat and Ravinder Singh.
At what point did these people become writers? Writing a story, a book, or a piece of prose doesn’t make a writer. If that’s the threshold for becoming a writer, then every student who’s written an essay for their exam is a writer.
That doesn’t make a writer.
Real writers acknowledge the process. You publish a book, and perhaps rewrite the entire thing and republish it fifteen years later. That’s a writer.
A writer doesn’t just write. A writer rewrites. A writer knows her writing isn’t perfect and learns to learn from it, learns to live with it, and to write better with it.
I don’t want to become a writer. I want to be writing.
The Chaos Within 