Write Only When Inspired
I write little. Weeks go by without scribbling a single word. You know - I am done with making notes and preparing the structures for my next stories or book, I am all excited about them, I believe in them and am almost in the can't-wait-to-see-what-happens-on-the-page mode - I do not need further motivations or reasons to write; so I should really be writing pages and pages on a word processor, but I am not. I write little. A paragraph sometimes. Mostly, I have observed, there is a release of 1000-1500 words in a spurt, followed by a feeling of accomplishment and satisfaction that lasts the day. Then, weeks of lull.
If I were a braver person, I would write even less. I would write only when inspired.
It is a foolish practice. And every writer in the world I know advises against this kind of practice. Good writing is as much about labor, and labor induced improvement, as any other skill or ability. Just as you become proficient in Maths or batsman-ship or elocution or cooking, with 99% perspiration, so it is with writing. As it should be.
Why would I act otherwise?
Proficiency, because, is not my aim. Self-effacement is.
It is for this reason I do not always trust my intentions to write. Underneath my noble intentions to share something deeply personal, behind my euphoria of this fresh little idea that has popped up on my head, maybe I am hurrying to the desk just to impress? Maybe I just want to show how smart or skilled or deep or original I am? Maybe what I am going after really is some kind of reward - fame, following, a recognition at least for my talent?
You see, any motivations that serve in propagating my self. they have to be curbed. The world has been, will be, and is doing very well without Mohit Parikh's written words - certainly, the moral quandary in my act of writing, or its abandonment, has to do with me. And I decide that if I am not having noblest of intentions (by which I mean absence of not-so-noble intentions), I ought to not-write.
Writing has to be a religious act. Bereft of hollow rites.
The downside of course is that I have bad habits. Complacency, indolence. But you cannot compromise with values for the sake of efficiency and productivity, can you?
Answer: Experience is teaching me I need to dig deeper.
The position I have hold (in this blog post at least) is that of a young person and I am not young anymore. I should do better than this, experience is telling me.
If I were a braver person, I would write even less. I would write only when inspired.
It is a foolish practice. And every writer in the world I know advises against this kind of practice. Good writing is as much about labor, and labor induced improvement, as any other skill or ability. Just as you become proficient in Maths or batsman-ship or elocution or cooking, with 99% perspiration, so it is with writing. As it should be.
Why would I act otherwise?
Proficiency, because, is not my aim. Self-effacement is.
It is for this reason I do not always trust my intentions to write. Underneath my noble intentions to share something deeply personal, behind my euphoria of this fresh little idea that has popped up on my head, maybe I am hurrying to the desk just to impress? Maybe I just want to show how smart or skilled or deep or original I am? Maybe what I am going after really is some kind of reward - fame, following, a recognition at least for my talent?
You see, any motivations that serve in propagating my self. they have to be curbed. The world has been, will be, and is doing very well without Mohit Parikh's written words - certainly, the moral quandary in my act of writing, or its abandonment, has to do with me. And I decide that if I am not having noblest of intentions (by which I mean absence of not-so-noble intentions), I ought to not-write.
Writing has to be a religious act. Bereft of hollow rites.
The downside of course is that I have bad habits. Complacency, indolence. But you cannot compromise with values for the sake of efficiency and productivity, can you?
Answer: Experience is teaching me I need to dig deeper.
The position I have hold (in this blog post at least) is that of a young person and I am not young anymore. I should do better than this, experience is telling me.
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