To Those Who Wander...
Some people live in the past. Some people live in the future. I fall into the second category. For as long as I can remember, I have survived the present by weaving stories about the future in my head, without knowing anything concrete about the path to those stories. And the futures became present and the stories never materialized and I moved on to newer stories, newer futures.
But this future that engrossed me was always of the airy variety- not the practical future of- if I practice X sums a day for Y number of days I will finish a chapter in my math book, or if I write points a, b, c in this order I will have a coherent paragraph. When I was in school, my mother would complain about my habit of always crossing out the first sentences of any essay I wrote.
“Why can’t you plan first and then begin writing?”
But I could not begin to think till I was in the middle of the business, neck-deep into a sea of scratched out words and by then, the thoughts had begun to take a life of their own, and I could only hope they would arrive somewhere in the end. This is a bad approach to anybody who wants to write anything at all- this has led me to five abandoned attempts at novel writings, several unfinished stories and severe stress while writing my M.Phil thesis- and I don’t recommend this at all. The reason I was such a failure at my drawing lessons is that, apart from an utter lack of proportions and the inability to draw shapes, I have no idea how to see the whole picture. So if you are any kind of writer, don’t do this to yourself. Plot, outline, plan as much as you can, and then get writing.
The other trouble with living in the airy castle of future is sometimes bridges are broken, and then nothing makes sense, and all the gravitation force of the world holds you immobilized in a haze of inertia. This happened to me last year. At that time, for several months, I had been toying with ideas and themes to use in fiction to be written in some far-flung future. I didn’t know what the stories were, so they remained unwritten. And then the daydreaming mind collapsed and everything was pointless, and I didn’t know how to go from one day to the next anymore. So out of the sheer desperation of wanting to be a little bit more than my present, I decided- damn the stories. Let me try just writing about the ideas first. I have a blog to do just that! It was terrifying, because I was afraid I would run out of ideas. I knew what the first post was going to be, but what then? And to deal with that fear and to force myself to begin- on this day, last year, I made an announcement on Facebook, declaring that I was going to revive my blog. I hadn’t specifically chosen the date, it just happened. And then, a friend pointed out it was 16th of June. I’m not a very academic type of academic (please let that phrase make sense), but I do understand something about wandering and homecoming. I think we all do, because we all live our own myths, following age-old patterns. And because we are all stardust scattered in space through paths we can never trace back.
So I made a resolution exactly one year ago, and I kept to it. And this is the longest stretch of time that my blog has ever been active. And other things grew out of this decision- a Facebook page, a YouTube channel, an Instagram account, even a poetry-writing challenge. I did run out of ideas at times, so I fibbed and fumbled, but wrote those posts anyway. And a few people read them, which made me write some more, and here we are today, one year old!
And because an anniversary of a resolution calls for another resolution, here goes another one- I have been working on another novel for a couple of weeks now. I write about a page a day because I also need to finish writing my Ph.D thesis, and I have no idea where my characters are going, and I am terrified that it is going to end up on the abandoned pile as number six, which is why I must absolutely declare on the internet that I am going to finish it.
Let all who wander lost never lose sight of the light. Happy BloomsDay.
My blogging and other creative activities are a little irregular at the moment (in fact, I broke a self-imposed hiatus because I wanted to mark the date) but I’m not abandoning anything. If I survive through writing my thesis (don’t ask), I’ll be back.
P.S: The usual stuff- poems from the last week, in association with Airplane Poetry Movement. This week's prompt was 'uncertainty'.
Your love means the world to me. <3 p="">
But this future that engrossed me was always of the airy variety- not the practical future of- if I practice X sums a day for Y number of days I will finish a chapter in my math book, or if I write points a, b, c in this order I will have a coherent paragraph. When I was in school, my mother would complain about my habit of always crossing out the first sentences of any essay I wrote.
“Why can’t you plan first and then begin writing?”
But I could not begin to think till I was in the middle of the business, neck-deep into a sea of scratched out words and by then, the thoughts had begun to take a life of their own, and I could only hope they would arrive somewhere in the end. This is a bad approach to anybody who wants to write anything at all- this has led me to five abandoned attempts at novel writings, several unfinished stories and severe stress while writing my M.Phil thesis- and I don’t recommend this at all. The reason I was such a failure at my drawing lessons is that, apart from an utter lack of proportions and the inability to draw shapes, I have no idea how to see the whole picture. So if you are any kind of writer, don’t do this to yourself. Plot, outline, plan as much as you can, and then get writing.
The other trouble with living in the airy castle of future is sometimes bridges are broken, and then nothing makes sense, and all the gravitation force of the world holds you immobilized in a haze of inertia. This happened to me last year. At that time, for several months, I had been toying with ideas and themes to use in fiction to be written in some far-flung future. I didn’t know what the stories were, so they remained unwritten. And then the daydreaming mind collapsed and everything was pointless, and I didn’t know how to go from one day to the next anymore. So out of the sheer desperation of wanting to be a little bit more than my present, I decided- damn the stories. Let me try just writing about the ideas first. I have a blog to do just that! It was terrifying, because I was afraid I would run out of ideas. I knew what the first post was going to be, but what then? And to deal with that fear and to force myself to begin- on this day, last year, I made an announcement on Facebook, declaring that I was going to revive my blog. I hadn’t specifically chosen the date, it just happened. And then, a friend pointed out it was 16th of June. I’m not a very academic type of academic (please let that phrase make sense), but I do understand something about wandering and homecoming. I think we all do, because we all live our own myths, following age-old patterns. And because we are all stardust scattered in space through paths we can never trace back.
So I made a resolution exactly one year ago, and I kept to it. And this is the longest stretch of time that my blog has ever been active. And other things grew out of this decision- a Facebook page, a YouTube channel, an Instagram account, even a poetry-writing challenge. I did run out of ideas at times, so I fibbed and fumbled, but wrote those posts anyway. And a few people read them, which made me write some more, and here we are today, one year old!
And because an anniversary of a resolution calls for another resolution, here goes another one- I have been working on another novel for a couple of weeks now. I write about a page a day because I also need to finish writing my Ph.D thesis, and I have no idea where my characters are going, and I am terrified that it is going to end up on the abandoned pile as number six, which is why I must absolutely declare on the internet that I am going to finish it.
Let all who wander lost never lose sight of the light. Happy BloomsDay.
My blogging and other creative activities are a little irregular at the moment (in fact, I broke a self-imposed hiatus because I wanted to mark the date) but I’m not abandoning anything. If I survive through writing my thesis (don’t ask), I’ll be back.
P.S: The usual stuff- poems from the last week, in association with Airplane Poetry Movement. This week's prompt was 'uncertainty'.
Your love means the world to me. <3 p="">
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