Between pen and paper

(Day one)

I love writing, reading, writing about what I’ve read and reading what I’ve written.

And yet, I have spent the last year riddled in self-doubt, unable to shake off the fear of being “out there” as a writer, under the scrutiny of the unforgiving online world. Hammering through the cripple, I kept at it. Or attempted to, at least.

I sat on that familiar worn-out sofa in my favourite corner at the library; one I’d eventually name Garry. Short for my writer’s ‘garret’, you know.

I wrote. I scribbled. I noisily typed away. I tried to force my way across blank pages without any real direction; I pushed myself daily to come up with something new, something exciting. I’d come back home with a faux sense of achievement. And when I looked back at my ‘work’, it was trash-can-worthy.

Writing then, became drudgery, and I became a wretch.

I refused to go on. Instead, I began to research psychological issues that could be thwarting my writing: I mean, every problem today seems to have a disorder linked to it. I figured this one would too. Basically, I did anything to keep me from getting back to Garry.

And bingo, I found it!

Of course! I had ‘writer’s block’! Duh!

Dan Brown had to hang upside to get his words flowing. Roald Dahl insisted on crawling into a sleeping bag before writing and Victor Hugo had to write in the nude, or he wouldn’t be able to put pen to paper. And there I was, little Jo, teeming with ideas but unable to write; my incessant use of the delete key, hours of pacing and my permanently-damaged manicures had to be ramifications of my ‘writer’s block’! I probably had some weird unsolved twitch too that induced all of my writing-related anxiety right?

Right…

Ah that infamous ‘writer’s block’ and the perverse glamour associated to it; what a noble suffering it is! I’d go out for a drink on a Friday night, after all the “hard work” I’d done that week and tell everyone around me all about my glorified writing woes. “I have writer’s block” with that pseudo-afflicted downward look was the perfect way to shut all the nosy people around me! They’d nod with a false sense of compassion.

Cut to a couple of months later. I became comfortable in that misery: I let myself believe that I was suffering from this Munchausen syndrome-like disorder.

Paralysed.
Tormented.

And yet, it’s not like my thoughts came to a screeching halt. In fact, I started to create an alternate world in my mind with characters and scenarios that I knew I could put on paper. But I had forced myself for so long to believe otherwise and my ‘writer’s block’ kicked in all over again…

So wait, was that going to be the end of my fetal writing career? you’re telling me that if creativity stops knocking at my door, I should never dare to venture out? No, that couldn’t be it. Actually, it wouldn’t be it.I had to look for a goddamn window around.

And I did.

I made the executive decision (Ha! Look at me giving myself way too much importance there) to let go of the writing project I’d been struggling with for so long. Yup, that’s it. I trashed that lousy crap.

I let myself fail and it was liberating.

I started jotting down new ideas. Refreshing, exciting and stimulating thoughts that I decided to fuse into a brand-new novel that I have immersed myself in over the last couple of months.

What about the writing anxiety, you ask? It still gnaws at my insides, sometimes. And since it’s been trying to toy with my feelings again recently, I have made a promise to myself…

I vow to write something new every day for 100 days and post it on social media (there’s no better pressure than social media pressure!) Yup, my very own 100 Day Project: #JPsLateNightScribbles. Think of it as thought/dream journaling minus the invasive details. Now, will this jumbled up mess of unfinished thoughts lead to some creative Victor-Hugo-esque brilliance? Maybe. I mean, how often does a creative person shit excellence anyway? 5% of the time? 10%? Right. So here’s my shot at it!

X
Jyoti