...thus, provoking another rant, be so warned! I embarked on this
year with a promise to myself that I would keep in touch with my inner writer
self more ardently than before.
I started blogging as a conduit for my thoughts and somewhere
along the way I got caught up with the hype around it. My blog moved on from
self expression to playing to the gallery which mainly constituted at that time
of cousins, best friends, the loyal hubby and the odd stranger. I made a few
cyber friends, very few I must say, and got blown into a balloon of false
pride. "I had to be super good when I write". "It has to be the
best or not at all" were the kind of excuses I was giving myself for not
being able to do any readable pieces. While I went on to write a few posts in
those early heady days, the writing did not, in my eyes, look mature. It did
not reflect my uber-cool opinions and hey I did speak about a lo..oot of
subjects even then. The blog slowly spiraled down to an ego game. Write a post.
Constantly refresh blog page. No comments yet. Continue refreshing. 1 comment.
The acclaim is mentioned to my parents gleefully to entice some pats. This
strategy I soon realized was not sustainable. I could not take the depression
of having mountains of work and paltry or no comments on my blogs at the same
time. The all important writer's block is conjured up and the writing is
halted. Then a lot of travel happened post which motherhood dawned and action
was back on the blog for some time. Only now every other post seemed to have a
connection to the antics of the little one. (It somehow continues, see there is
already a mention in this post.) I did get a lot of feedback during this phase
but what irked me is the manner in which I was getting it. Most of it was verbal,
some of it over chat and many over phone conversations. No comments on the blog
itself. If one thought I wrote a certain piece well, that person ideally should
have left a comment on the blog. What I wanted to explain to them (and I never
have) is that comments beget comments. I think, in general blog readers find it
easier to say something if they see that they are not the first. By then
the rigors of life overwhelmed me into another hiatus. I knew I had the time if
I wanted but all I wanted to do in it was sleep. I wasn’t sleep-deprived or
anything,, just plain lazy. Then a habit breaker of sorts happened last year. I
suddenly had too much free time on my hands yet I was looking for various
alibis to cover up my non-performance as a writer.
Flash forward to the present. 2012 presented me with a new place,
new ideas and a new eagerness. I channeled all of this into motivating myself
to write. I have a few ideas including a collection of short stories. All
quarter baked and typed in my brain for the exclusive use of my non-existent
memory. I am gifted with fore thought. Too much of it. So much that if I
dole out a bucket each then I can easily cater to a couple of hundred people.
There is a slight problem however, I forget the present. It’s as if my mind has
gone beyond today and concluded on what’s going to happen in my life next month
and is already tackling the issues arising from future situations. That means I
am thinking about the economies of publication, even before I have shortlisted
the mode of publishing, long before even writing the stories and leaps before I
even think through them. Now I have successfully confused you into wondering
what this is all about. To tell you in short, read till the end. At the turn of
the year, a lot of apprehensions of 2011 vanished from my mind and in place was
a clean slate. 2012 would be what I decide for it. I decided to pick up the
pen, stick it in my knot and start typing one post a day. I would write what I
want to without bothering to see whether anyone posted comments. Since the
social dynamics have changed from the last time I blogged incessantly, I found
it meaningful to provide access to what I wrote on Facebook. There is no harm
in baring your soul and not getting an echo. I am just happy to note that I
have done whatever I could do to get it out there. I have so far deluded myself
from going into an "I am not good at it" hole. I have been there
done that. It was not difficult to jump into it given my craving for fame. But
it has taken a long while to grapple out of it. I now look forward to the
everyday challenge of thinking what to write about. The writing itself does not
take too long but the thought behind it does. Sometimes it takes me the whole
day and I am able to submit the post just in time before the 12 gong. At times
I feel like asking for topics that I could write on, much like the essay
writing competitions in school. That was simple. If you know what to write
about you can fire your imagination faster. (I guess it’s the same lack of
creativity which ensured I could never paint even though I used to be a very
good "inspired" artist as I was growing up). I am not one for
exhibitionism and I think I love to write because it gives me the anonymity and
an alley to hide behind my topics and story characters. I hope to continue this
tradition well into the second month. I definitely want to extrapolate this into
something bigger.
You may see my blog as narcissistic but that is by intention. I
however try to do the occasional story which might be entertaining (But I dont
know why they all turn out dark).
In case you are still on this page by the time you reach here and
are wondering what my topic for today was, it was a challenge to write a post
which had a thousand words :)