The Writing Life

I have been writing all my life but last year I became a full time writer. I wound up my 15 years of teaching workshops. My last workshop was early 2010. This year I awaken each morning with only the daily writing in mind and it is bliss.

No longer the endless ringing of the phone, no longer having to break up the climactic scene in the middle so I am on time for my workshop. Now there are whole, long, welcoming days to fill with writing.

A lot of people told me that I would never give up teaching because I enjoy it so much. I do enjoy it and so it was touch and go for a while, but it was either that or books and the books won. I have at least ten books in mind and now I have the time to write them. One published, another complete and many more to go.

I am no longer hunting for a cab on a rainy Sunday morning hoping they have not forgotten to open the room for my workshop. Or answering the phone. Calls always peak on the day before a workshop and the phone rings almost non stop. Now it hardly rings and I can write in peace.

I think that is the one thing which writers need. Time to write, think, re-write, edit, polish finish. It’s a long process. Writing a book is even longer. It takes dedication. I know that I will not feel like writing half the time but I will write anyway. The daily portion must be done. Sometimes it flows and sometimes it takes all day. The only way to finish a book is to keep at it, day after day, never taking a long break.

It’s a different life, this one. A quiet life, just you and the laptop. Perhaps that is the problem. A lot of writers get distracted because there is no one to urge you on. You have to be your own taskmaster, setting your portion and making sure you complete it.

This year I’m writing fiction and its hard to explain how delightful it is. I don’t think I can explain it to anyone who has not written fiction, who has not taken a journey into that very real world of your characters and watched them coming alive on the page. You are not yourself. You are someone else, somewhere else, drawing on your very last reserves of courage. For a writer the emotions are cathartic. On the page you can feel every emotion in its deepest and rawest form, and the more you let go, the deeper it gets.

Writing fiction is quite unlike writing anything else. You are in a different mind space altogether. I am also writing poetry and that is similar but not the same. Nothing can really compare with writing stories, any kind of story, short stories or a novel. This year that is my main work, writing every morning, writing late into the night. And I wonder, how did I get so lucky ?

 

Those who dont read

The one thing you discover when you publish a book is all the people who don’t read. When I used to walk a dog on Marine Drive I discovered how many men bark at dogs and it’s a similar thing. They look you in the eye and throw down a challenge, “haven’t read a book since the day I left college,” they say proudly, expecting a medal. Then they see your face and condescend a little so as not to hurt an author’s delicate feelings. “But I will read your book, give me a copy.”

Then I have to explain, in whatever way I can, that I have no copies. (the six I received  have long been distributed and I am hanging on to one by the skin of my teeth and my sister is hanging on to another and growls at anyone who comes near) I tell them that lowly authors don’t have a wealth of copies to give out and suggest a bookstore.

At that point they draw back. I see alarm and suspicion in their faces. I go ahead and tell them the name of the nearest bookstore.

“Where is it ?”  they ask, even if its just down the road.

I know what they are thinking. They are wondering if it is safe to do such a strange thing as wander into an unknown bookshop. I have seen them scurry by on the farthest side of the pavement, with furtive looks over their shoulder as they pass.

I try to make it easier. “If you call them they will deliver the book to you,” I say. Immediately I wish I had not said that.

“Give me the phone number,” they demand as if I carry it in my pocket. When I admit I do not know the number I know I have lost all credibility.

First I should have given them a book free from the enormous stack at my elbow, second I should not have been so crude as to expect decent people like them to step into a place like a bookstore and now, I don’t even carry the phone number handy. So I promptly put my foot into it by suggesting they look it up on the web. By then they are herding their children behind them and hunting for the exit.

I once heard a conversation in a bookstore when I was browsing the shelves. A young voice, speaking right behind the tall racks. “Hi, mom, you will never guess where I am ?  No, no, I am not with a boy, I am at a bookshop. What ?  No, a bookshop, you know where they sell books. Books. Yes, like that. Yes, of course I am okay, I came with a friend. No, mom, I promise I have never come here before. It just happened. What ? No, she just went to look for a book. Don’t worry, mom, I am really fine. I promise I wont stay long. I will be home soon. Bye.”

Peering through the books I saw two receding figures both wearing the anonymous teenage uniform of blue jeans and tight black T-shirt.  A few minutes later they walked out, no doubt with a sigh of relief. I wonder if her anxious mother kept calling, “have you left yet ? Are you okay ?”

Then there are those who, when they hear you are writing a book, look you straight in the eye and ask bluntly, “what for ?”  I don’t know the answer to that one. I wonder if anyone knows. I learnt the hard way that it is not an existential question requiring philosophical quotes from the Bhagvad Gita. They are talking about something far more mundane. I finally figured out that they did not mean, what for, they meant, how much, “How much did you pay to publish it ? Does it make good money?” and unless you want them to cut you out of their lives completely never tell them how much an author earns.

And then there is always that earnest woman who leans forward and says confidentially, “I don’t read. Why don’t you just tell me what it is about ?  Just tell me the important parts.” When I avoid that one she says, “well, if you lend it to me, I will look at it. As I said I don’t read.”

When I refuse she says she will get a copy of her own, in a very weary tone, obviously thinking that I will suffer terribly bad karma for this sordid breach of generosity. Then she has a better idea and delivers it by sidling close, lowering her voice and asking me to do her a favour. “You know I don’t read,” she says for the third time, “can you mark out all the important parts ?”

That is not the worst. I met the worst on a bright sunny morning in a bookstore café. I had just ordered coffee and she came and sat by me unasked and showed me a book which was fortunately not my own. She had made notes in the margins and underlined paras, and folded corners. “I love this book,” she said, and proceeded to read me her comments. “I come here every week and sit at this table and read it and make my comments. What was the name of your book again ?”

We left together, walking past the long shelves. Then I found she was not beside me and turned to look. She was bending over the bottom shelf, slipping that favourite book right into the corner, behind a few others.

“There,” she said, “its quite safe till I come back next week.”  With a satisfied smile she headed for the door.

Writers Block

Most writer’s play this game, the game of writer’s block. Some play it so well that they never write at all. Others play it and delay. All writer’s know this game intimately and have fallen into its dire clutches at some time or another. Writer’s know it, know what it is and still fall prey to it but once you know then at least you will be able to recover when it hits. You can’t win this game but you can stay one step ahead.

How do you recognise writer’s block ? Look at the artist who has not painted for twenty years. What terrible catastrophe can keep an artist from his art ? What worldwide disaster can keep a writer from writing ? It doesn’t take anything on the earthquake magnitude to do it. Its smaller and more deadly than that.

It’s a thought, it’s a kind of thinking. You sit down to write, to create, and then you think, the time is not right, what about those chores that really need doing, today is not a good day, the inspiration is not there, it wont be any good if I start now, why don’t I wait for a better time.

Do those excuses sound familiar ? Why did the artist not paint for twenty years ?
‘Oh, the house is being renovated, and it’s a complete mess, you don’t know what it like, when its over, then I will surely paint again.’ Does it happen ? Of course not, when the renovation is done there is something else waiting.

You can never run out of excuses.

I don’t have time right now, I am so busy, but when the children grow up, then I will have time to write.

Who has time when I am working so hard, when I retire, that’s when I will write the greatest novel the world has seen.

One day I’ll have more time, then I will be able to think about writing, how can I write when I have so many problems ?

Its just that the time is not right and one day I will wake up and the time will be right and every word will be perfect, and I will have a whole novel written before I even know it.
No, it does not work like that. The time is never right.

Of course it never happens. It cant happen. Postponers are not creators. The best definition of a writer I know is this one. A writer is not someone who is well published and acclaimed. No, a writer is someone who is writing. Writing now, every day, all the time. Writer’s write. Writers are obsessive about writing. If they don’t write then they are not writers.

It does not matter wether you are a well published author or have no more than a boxful of rejection letters. Writer’s block hits everyone. Some never begin. They dream of that great novel, make notes, tell themselves the story but never touch the keyboard.  Some who publish a wonderful novel never write a second, they freeze after the first. So many people all over the world dream that shining golden dream of writing, sit by their windows and wait, waiting for inspiration, waiting for the time to be right, waiting for that one perfect day which never ever comes.

And no words flow.

So what is this frozen winterland, writer’s block ? It has many names. Blank page fright. First draft blues. Call it what you will. It happens when you drive in the wrong gear. The brain has gears, much like a car. You need to be in the right gear to drive and you need to be on the right side of the brain to write.

The brain has two sides, the right and the left.
The left brain is the editor, the right brain is the dreamer.

The left brain, the stern and no nonsense editor, is the side used most in today’s world. The editor is the one who organises your life, makes sure you reach your appointments on time, keeps all your deadlines, corrects the spellings and the grammar, stops you when you are too impulsive, keeps control and disapproves of the erratic and flighty dreamer.

The dreamer is the right brain, the elusive part, quicksilver, flashing inspiration, never still, never on time, always vagrant and wandering. This is the part of you that will always stun you by coming up with surprises, leave you awed and wondering, did I really write that, I didn’t know I could.

Writing must come from the dreamer and not from the editor.

The editor cannot write and the dreamer can neither spell nor edit. Its no use asking the editor to write and the dreamer to edit. When you do that you end up with writer’s block. Its not that we don’t know how to switch, its just that we don’t understand what we are doing and so cannot do it on demand.

How do you know where you are in your writing ? Its very clear.

If you are in the dreamer side of the brain when you write your words will fly over the page, and your stories will take off into the most amazing realms, characters will come alive and take over the story, and you will end up shaking your head, wondering, wow, did I write that ? It sounds fabulous.

The right brain just loves the act of writing and gets you so lost in it that you forget the outside world. The left brain is result oriented, and is not interested in the writing. The left brain is the one saying, all I want is the fame and money, cant I skip the writing and get to that ? This is the brain that worries, will anyone publish it, will anyone read it, am I wasting my time ? Worrying about all of that you never write at all.

If you are in the that editor side of the mind then writing is slow and painful. You write one sentence and frown because its not right, and go back and correct it and re-correct it and keep working on it until, finally, you decide the time is not right. Better come back to it tomorrow or next week, or never.

Do you see the pattern of your writing ?

Some writers never get past para 1 or the first chapter. Some novelists get stuck at page 50. Others keep writing and re-writing, convinced that if it is not perfect there is no point writing the rest. The editor hates disorder, wants everything in logical sequence and hates skipping ahead. The editor is never a good writer.

So how do you get into the dreamer part of the mind ? Its no big esoteric secret. You don’t have to fast or meditate, sacrifice your pleasures or go and live in a cave for a hundred years. Its not painful or terrible. You have to do none of those things, but you have to do something far more difficult.

You have to allow.

The time does not have to be right, you do not have to wait for ideas, retirement or heaven whichever comes first. There is no such unicorn as that elusive tomorrow when you will have all the time in the world and inspiration will wait on you like a devoted servant. Those are the myths. The reality is writing.

The rule of the first draft is simple, so simple that we keep forgetting it.

To write you have to write. That is it. Write. Put pen to paper, fingers to keyboard and begin. Right now, today.

There is only one rule about the first draft.

You have to write it, not think about it. You have to surrender and let writing take over and carry you to another plane.

Start writing, don’t hesitate, don’t postpone, don’t think, don’t worry, don’t linger, absolutely don’t correct and most important of all, don’t stop. Just start and keep going, writing whatever comes, good bad or brilliant.

Never correct your first draft in any way whatsoever. Make the spelling mistakes and keep going. Twist the grammar and keep going. Note ideas in half sentences and keep going. Leave loose ends, wander all over the place but always keep going, digress and get lost. If you think of a better version write that next to the old one, but don’t correct, don’t edit. And above all, keep going.

Your editor will be leaning over your shoulder in horror, saying, how can you write such rubbish, stop, stop, I have to correct this. And then, if you stop, you play that game again. The old, old writer’s block game. The editor says very reasonably, lets finish this sentence, lets get a good opening line and then we will write the rest. That quest for the perfect sentence can take ten years, while the dreamer is hammering at your mind’s door yelling, I am suffocating in here, let me out, let me out.

Its really very simple. Ignore the editor. Tell yourself that its okay to write rubbish, its okay to make a mess, its okay to do all those things your teachers rapped you on the knuckles for in school. Its okay to meander, and not make sense, and mess up spelling and forget grammar, and put down half sentences, and switch to something else in the middle, and wander from one topic to another, and fiddle here and fiddle there.

Anything as long as you keep writing.

The time for correcting is later. Tell the editor to go sharpen his pencils, and sit down and write, burn holes in the paper, but keep writing. When you do that miracles happen. You may begin with no inspiration, but it will come, the ideas will flow, the words will fall into place, and suddenly out of nowhere you are in high gear and magic is  flowing from your pen.

Writer’s heaven.

So stop playing the game of writer’s block. Put pen to paper and step on the accelerator. There is only one best time to write and that time never changes, its always the same time, in every age, in every language, in every world.

Now.

Here is another one of my articles on writing,

This Writing Addiction.

http://www.epicindia.com/magazine/Culture/this-writing-addiction