Daily Writing
25 Years Of Powerful Writing Advice In 45 Minutes
I choose to whisper to the page. Day 3 of 100.
I was scrolling through my phone and switching from one social app to another social app envying the fitness of friends and the success of content creators. Just then a message popped into the First Draft Club WhatsApp group: Don’t miss the session with a TV Producer, Bestselling Author, Actor, and Standup Comedian Anirban Bhattacharyya.
My first thought was: it is 4:48 PM and the session is at 5:00 PM, if I had not been on the phone now I would have missed the session. Oh, I shall not have silenced the group notifications on this WhatsApp group.
If you relate to this in any way, you would feel some heaviness in your heart; how a growth-oriented move of enrolling into a ₨999 Masterclass, another $499 writing course has residues into many WhatsApp groups with a promise to implement all learnings, one day. I felt that hole in my heart.
While I hoped to find the writing muse in the session, still I kept the video off and the audio muted. Hail Technology for generosity to people like me welled with guilt and shame.
Of Anirban Bhattacharyya’s 40+ years of wisdom and 25+ years of successful writing career (his book The Deadly Dozen: India’s Most Notorious Serial Killers is an Amazon bestseller in India and the US,) I want to share his response to Three questions that can change your mindset about writing.
Que #1: You are an author, a poet, a standup comedian, a movie actor, a television and media professional, mainstream content creator. How do you make time for each passion? If you have to pick one Genre, which one would that be?
Ans: We humans are like taxis. The moment we are born, the meter is down … when the time will be up, we don’t know. So make up time for what you love. You are doing a lot for mind and body; what about your soul?
Though I understand it is easy to market the author who writes in a single genre…Still, I like to experience the child in me through children’s books, feed the human’s natural linking for crime through investigating series, and get in the fantasy land through fiction.
Que #2: How do you feel while writing different genres?
Ans: When you are true to your craft and you know about the topic you enjoy the writing. Feel it like a spiritual experience.
However, when I write about crime series, I see the switch in my body language, I feel the character embodied in me. It sometimes takes two to four weeks of energy to embody victim, police, catch me if you can aspects of the protagonist in me.
And the old classic question about writing routine …
Que #3: One piece of advice for writers in different phases of their writing journey?
Ans: When you want to be a writer, you have to want to write. Writing is like a chore, like picking your bag and going to the market to buy vegetables. the day you lose touch touch with it, you lose. Write daily. Fix 60–90 minutes in the day and you don’t exist for the world for that time. Word count is technical bullshit, just sit on your desk and get the story out. Once you have put it out on paper then think of technicalities like how-to, quotes, and all.
When I am hoping to be a good writer and storyteller — who tells stories clearly, and with conviction. I also know that Hope is not the strategy, consistency is. Today is Day#3 of writing, I am looking forward to seeing where it will take me. Take care everyone.
Who is this strange woman doing the talking? I am a flawsome parent, a woman in technology, and a self-proclaimed DIP. Discoveries-in-Progress. I am on my mission to boldly redefine what it means to truly lead and belong — in the workplace, our families, and our communities. You can follow my work here.
