On Writing – Page 2

The predicament(s) of a writer

I am a struggling writer. My first book is out in Oct (if all goes well). While I am proud about the fact that I am going to be a published writer, there are a 1000 questions swirling in my head. Answers are not easy. And hence the predicament. Before I launch into it, here is a disclaimer.

Disclaimer.
Writing is something that did not happen to me naturally. I had to work hard on it. Took me 10 odd years of consistent rambling on this blog to be able to realize that I could write a book.

In fact this blog helped me realize that I loved writing.

Now, coming to questions, the first question that I get asked is, “Why do I write?“

And my answer is…

I write because I love writing. Its like my fix, its my poison. Its my kick. It makes me happy. There is nothing else that I have been able to discover that allows to get me in the zone, in the flow.

Same zone, same flow that athletes get into when they are performing at their peak. Same zone where yogis get in when they are meditating. Same zone where coders are when they spend nights after nights working on lines and lines of code.

Next question that inevitably is, “Who do you write for?“

My answer:

Ofcourse I write for myself. Apart from a secret blog that I write for sgMS, for her to read, everything I write is for me.

Not for readers. Not for friends. Not for family, not for strangers, not for anyone else. It’s for me.

It has to give me that happiness. It has to please me. Everything is about me when I write.

And no, I am not a narcissist. As yet.

The final question that makes the predicament apparent, “If you write for yourself, why do you want to publish it? Why make it public? Why not keep it hidden in a secret dairy? Why even write a blog?“

I struggle, cringe and sweat. But then more often than not, my answer is:

Because I like the idea that what I write has the ability to go beyond the borders. What I write can spread. What I write can help me meet more people. It can open doors. It can broaden my horizons. Having someone else read what I have written gives me an opportunity to improve my craft. It allows me to get feedback. It’s the reality check.

And then I get that inevitable look of confusion, distrust, mockery from people. Even from good friends. And I dont know what to tell them. Now you see? The predicament. I wonder how do other writers answer these questions. I wonder what about other artists? I can hazard a guess that any art has to be commercially viable for it to take off in the long run and hence the publishing etc. But then who am I to mix art and commerce.

No?

P.S.: If you are interested in writers talking about writing, do see www.onWriting.in. I ask Indian writers 5 questions about writing and publish these on this blog. No, so far I havent published my answers. I think I’ll wait till Oct for that. Why? Because The Nidhi Kapoor Story comes out then!

How to? For the lazy ones.

No, you’re not the only lazy person that you know of. There are more. So many that there is this entire corner of the world wide web reserved for them. Trust me. Ok dont. But just search for procrastination, getting things done, to-do lists, productivity, life hacking and more. Each sounds like an interesting buzzword with a million interpretations. But all of these are essentially talk to the same set of people. Lazy ones. Like me. Like you.

I have always had a million ideas that could possibly put a ding in the universe. But since I have always been lazy, I never pursued any idea. But with Nidhi Kapoor, somehow I got lucky. Despite my legendary laziness, I could work on it for more than 9 months and actually finish it.

Someone asked me how did I do. And since I am all for sharing, here is a list of things that I did to make it happen.

1. Create a large measurable output.
A novella of 30 posts, each post with 1000 words.
Lose 2 inches in a month. Takes 10000 steps every day.
Money? 10 lakhs a month. Health? 6 packs. Travel? 100 counties. So on and so forth.
I try to create a large audacious goal that I want to achieve. And then I try to make it measurable. A goal that is not measurable is not a goal at all. Its just wishful thinking.

2. Divide things into tiny, measurable and tangible goals.
20 minutes of yoga. 1000 words a day. 10000 steps a day. 1 country per month.
Key words are tiny, measurable and tangible. Without these three, all goals are meaningless. There is nothing like “few” or “some”. Moment you make a tiny task that has “few” in it, please know that its doomed. It wont happen. I can bet my ass on it.

There’s a simple test to know if the goals you set are correct. If you can see, notice and talk about the progress you’re making against the goal, you are on track.

For example, over a period of time, 1000 word everyday get compiled into a nice thick book. Use some app on your phone and you would have a nice chart with all the steps you’ve walked over the days. So on and so forth.

3. Share the large goal and tiny tasks with the world.
Subject yourself to public ridicule.

If possible, get a couple of likeminded people and do it with them. You can write from the comfort of your home. They could walk on a track close to their place. But report to each other. Be each other’s boss and subordinate at the same time. Help each other. Remember that standing on the shoulders of giants?

Public ridicule is probably the most powerful motivational force that is ignored. Make a commitment on Facebook and then ask your closest friend to take your happiness on FB if you don’t do things. I promise you would do things just to stop your friends from posting things on FB.

If your friends refuse to help you by ridiculing you, I volunteer to do so. What say?

4. Celebrate. Every day and when you achieve the large ultimate goals.
The way daily tiny goals are important, you ought to celebrate the achievement of those goals. For example, everytime I write those 1000 words, I go and buy myself a Diet Coke. You may buy yourself an icecream. Or one hour of Internet. Etc.

Get addicted to these rewards. The goal thus become like a precursor to these rewards. More you crave for the awards, more passionately you’d chase your goals.

Same for that large goal. Make the award so big that you want it at any cost. When I finished my book, I told myself that I would go travel at a firang destination. And I am going in June. Fingers crossed.

Thats it! When you do achieve your goal, do share with me. Would love to see what you cook up!

All the best! And do “like” the FB page for my book ;P Its at facebook.com/TheNidhiKapoorStory.

P.S.: Please note that this is not scientific at all. This is something that has worked for me and may or may not work for you. But do try.

Credits
Thanks to SG26Jul for the idea.

B. Book.

This is the second post in the A to Z Challenge. My theme is my Bucket List. Read more about the project here.

B is for Book. A published book. Under my name.

Its no secret that I aspire to be a writer. A professional writer. Even with my limited grasp on the language and tiny vocabulary, I want to be a professional writer. I want to write articles (for newspapers), opinions (for magazines), prose (for lovers separated by the world around them), books (for people bored out of their wits) and speeches (that moves the damn mountains).

I haven’t read a lot but from whatever I have, I want to be talked about alongside greats like Charles Bukowski, Stephan King and Murakami. Maybe Hemingway from the previous era. Coming back to contemporaries, Sue Grafton, Jeffery Archer, John Grisham, Sidney Sheldon and Lee Child. And Surendra Mohan Pathak, RK Narayan, Uapamanyu Chatterjee, Satyajeet Rey, Khushwant Singh, Javed Akhtar Saab if I talk about people from India. I even dare to dream that I want to be as influential as Harivansh Rai Bachchan Saab and Gulzar Saab are. They often say about Gulzar Saab, “In the beginning, there were words. And then there was Gulzar.”

Anyhow, I am sure I am missing out on some names but that’s ok. I am sure this gives you a drift. I really really want to write.

The funniest bit is that writing happened to me by accident. About ten years back. With this blog. And about a year back when I took a break to work on The Nidhi Kapoor Story. Its funny that you spend 30 years of your life (more than half the useful time you have here) and you suddenly realize what you want to do. What makes you happy. And it turns out to be something as simple as writing. Or may be as tough as writing. Take your pick. Either way, its exciting. And its exhilarating. Its orgasmic.

The thing with is writing is that you could be holed up in a dark corner in a smelly basement and yet you can move a mountain in a different part of the world. Of course moving a mountain is at one extreme. Its a figure of speech. But other common place examples are as abundant. For example, I reckon, most freedom struggles have been won by the undying grit of the fanatic fighters and the mighty pens of writers. Most products are sold by advertising created by smart marketeers and smarter lines by the writers. Most things that pour molten chocolate down our heart and make us feel special (music, films, cards et al) are imagined by dreamers and crafted by writers. So on and so forth. You think of something amazing and I would point at the contribution made by writers.

These writers, some are lucky that they are gifted and they realize it early on. Most, like me, stumble on it and work hard to hone the craft. And the thing with writing is that with ample practice, you can really get better at it. I’d not go there. Enough people have said it enough times in enough ways.

Since I didnt really get it as a gift, I am working on it. I am working on it as we talk. I work on it when I sleep, eat, crap, travel, think or read. In terms of tangibles, every time I post a blogpost, every word I write is work. It takes me a step closer to being a better thinker. A better writer.

I know that writing is going to be an important part of me. And I am going to work hard for it.

I’d need to because I believe that writing a book is probably the biggest challenge of them all. To start with, it takes a lot of time to finish one. An average fiction book is about 80K words and if I was to write 1000 words everyday, it would take me 80 straight days to write it. At least 3 months. For someone as lazy as I, three months would mean nine. Then the book has this finality about it. There is a story and there is a plot and there are characters. There is an emotional investment that people ought to make when they pick your book. There is a lot riding on it. For a writer.

Its like the endurance test. Everyone can run 100 meters but very few can go and finish a damn marathon. I want to finish a marathon. A book is a marathon. Like a marathon, a book is not about the time you take to finish it. Its about the damn finish line. And nothing else.

A book, published book, under my name, is thus a thing on my bucket list. A very important thing that I ought to do in life.

And you know what, I have a book on its way. I have put in almost 9 months working on it. And its near completion. The book hopefully would come out by July this year if all goes well. Do see the website at www.tnks.in.

For me, #tnks would be the first step towards becoming a writer. Not that I need a gratification from the world but its like coming of age. Its like a personal milestone. That I can write. That I am a writer. It may not be accepted by the world, it may be laughed at but it will be out in print. Soon.

Inshallah.

Oh, by the way, a writer is nothing more than an egomaniacal delusional bastard in absence of an audience. And a few patrons. I am in dire need of some. You want to help? Its easy. All you need to do is pray for me and send some good karma my way. Thats all I ask.

You want to do more? Help me when The Nidhi Kapoor Story comes out. Help me with spreading word about it. Help me by liking the FB page. Help me by pointing things that I could do to make it better. Help me by connecting to other people who may help me further.

And, thats about it. About writing. About #tnks. About book.

Writer’s Block!

Via

Its here! The writer’s block.

I cant write. I havent written for almost 15 days. Not on the blog, not on the book, not on the secret blog, no emails, nothing. And damn!

The thing is called the Writer’s Block. And it is defined as a phenomenon when a writer loses the ability to produce new work. It is not a problem with the ability of the writer but is more of a temporary roadblock that prevents the writer from creating new work. I dont know if the definition is correct but I really want to assume that it is. I can not believe that I’ve run out of juice after writing a blog for ten years. People tend to become great after spending ten years with things.

In my case, the block is probably as a result of the break that I imposed on myself after I finished the first draft of The Nidhi Kapoor Story. Anyhow, the block is here and it sucks. Truly. I have realized that I am extremely happy when I am writing. In fact writing is my escape. There are times when I am fucked up in my head and the only way I can let go things is by letting my fingers dance on the keyboard. Writing is like my fix. Its my poison. Its something that I have to do if I am to be happy.

And since I hate to be unhappy for long durations of time (yes, I imply that I am unhappy when I am not writing), I have these homegrown remedies to get out of the block. This post, is actually an outcome of one such remedy. In fact, if Neo did not nudge me, I wouldn’t have thought about this. Thank You.

Hopefully tomorrow onwards I would restart writing. Even if its small insignificant updates on the blog. Or inane changes in the story.

Till then, so long!

P.S.: Here are a few other posts that I’ve written about writer’s block.

The Publish Button

The Publish button

You know the funny bit about blogging? Even today, ten years since I started writing a blog, more than 1300 published posts, everytime I push the Publish button, I have my guts in my throat. I get butterflies. I get scared. I am in jitters.

What if I’ve made typos? What if someone ridicules it? What if an prospective employer / bride reads this and rejects me? What if this? What if that?

The Publish Button is my greatest fear. I am not scared of darkness, heights, lurking monsters in blind alleys, public speaking, approaching a member of the opposite gender, dentists, (or any of these other top ten fears of humans). But I am scared of the Publish button. Very scared.

And like all fears, once I do it, once I am over it, it transforms from fear into freedom. From scare into thrill. The fear is gone. The button is like that teleport switch that helps me hit escape velocity and go in the orbit. On one side is a lot of ridicule and the other side is pure exhilaration of having created something. Of seeing things out there. And trust me, there is no larger satisfaction than creating something. Something out of thin air. That’s what writing is about. Pulling strands out of thin air and weaving them in a coherent story!

No wonder I love writing. No wonder I am addicted. To the fear of Publish button and the relief that comes when I have pressed it.

Addicted. To Writing.

Hotlinked from here.

Yesterday, I was meeting a friend and we were talking about life and all that. So, she’s like my soul guru. I can bare my soul to her and yet not worry about making a fool of myself. Even if I do make a fool of myself, I don’t mind. She knows how to put me at peace. She is brilliant like that. So, while talking to her, I said something that I had never realized before. That’s the thing about her. Anyway, I said…

Every night when I go home and I think about the way I’ve spent the day gone by, if I realize that I haven’t written 1000 words, I feel shitty about the day. Really shitty.

And then I said,

Over time I have got addicted to the good feeling that only comes to me when I know that I wrote something during the day.

Wow! That was some writing. I am not even counting the number of bugs in there. Thats the exercise for someone else. Some editor or a grammar nazi. Are you one? I am looking for an editor for my book. Lemme know.

The bottom-line is, I am addicted. To writing. And I am happy about it. I just want to indulge more and more into it. Get addicted more and more. Till it becomes terminal. Terminal as in terminal. Terminal like terminally-ill.

Like most other addicts, when they get terminally addicted, the thing they are addicted to, gets short-supplied. I am no different.

Similarly, now that I am addicted to writing, I dont know what to write. The book that I was writing? Even that is now done. The first draft of the book is done (you may like the FB page here), I don’t know what to write. I do have the next plot but with it, I am in that phase when I am passively thinking about it. That’s the process I follow. Think about things passively. Passively as in think absent-mindedly about things. Till they take up shape. Till I get some clarity. Till I know what it would be. And then I start writing. And write everyday. At least 1000 words. Till I get stuck. And then I repeat the process.

So, I dont know what to do. I dont know how to feed in this addiction. And the fact that I cant feed to this addiction, its killing me.

Help me. Somehow. Please.

Chicken? Or Egg?

Hotlinked from here.

So I have a question. What came first? Chicken? Or the egg?

I am not sure. And I cant seem to find out.

Let me talk about a personal ~~story~~ pain-point about this.

If you know me, you would know that I have been trying to start writing. For money. Like a full time writer. I even made a blog but I did not do anything about it. Its on dotWriter. Do see it. And let me know what you think of it.

I know I have limited writing skills but I want to give it a shot. I know its too late at my age to attempt this. But I want to give it a shot. I know English does not come to me naturally. But I want to give it a shot. I know I dont know how to price my time. But I want to give it a shot.

You would also know that business development, or the act of asking for work, does not come naturally to me. I am a very shy person by nature and it takes a lot on me to be able to make a call and ask for work. Despite all of that, I make an effort to do it. I reach out, talk to people, pitch my services.

But somehow, every person that I talk to about this seems to want to work with experienced writers only. Only. Let me call this Chicken.

I tried to kill this monster called experienced and since I did not know who / what it is, I googled for it.

It told me that “experienced” is defined as “having knowledge or skill in a particular field, esp. a profession or job, gained over a period of time.” The keyword here is “over a period of time”. OVER A PERIOD OF TIME. Let me call this Egg.

So the question that I asked in the beginning, now that you know what is chicken and what is egg, let me ask it again. What came first? Chicken? or the Egg?

How do I get experience so that people who want to work with experienced writers agree to work with me? How do I get people to agree to work with me so that I may be experienced?

Simply put, where do I start? How do I get work? Any answers? Any help? Chicken? Egg?

Reading vs Hearing

Posted originally on The Nidhi Kapoor Story blog.

Yesterday I was dinnering with a friend and talking about The Nidhi Kapoor Story. While we were at it, he told me something very insightful about the way I write. He said, “my sentence structure is very conversational.“

I did not understand this at first. When I prodded him more, he said that he meant that when he reads things that I write, he does not have to make any special efforts to comprehend what he is reading (aka what I’ve written). Its like someone talking to him. Its like a regular, everyday conversation that two people are engaged in. There is back and forth of ideas, thoughts. The words, the sentences, the meaning is plain jane and is commonplace. He said he could consume it while sleeping and yet comprehend it.

So, next, I asked him, “What is the other kind?”

He said, the one where you use flowery language and you write with the intent of using words to exaggerate the meaning, club them with other interesting words to create poetry. Poetry not as poems but poetry as expression. Where, while reading, you need to focus on what is written. Where, when you do comprehend what is written, you are filled with pleasure. Pleased at the ingenuity of the writer. For example, Jack Kerouac‘s brilliant timeless piece, “the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars.“

When was the last time you heard someone use “burn, burn, burn like fabulous roman candles” in a day to day conversation? Unless you were talking to a drunk man. Or unless you were sitting across a poet high on something. Or unless it was a philosopher. Such people, like Jack, they think in rhymes. They ponder over deeper meaning of words. And they have a mastery over human emotions. And then equipped with all this, they coin new words and twist the rules of grammar, rules of language to create masterpieces. It must be such a pleasing sight to see such masters in action.

Truth be told, I would love to create poetry like that. I believe that its my reason, my purpose. To create poetry I mean. But I am not equipped to do it right now. In some time may be. I shall wait. Hopefully you guys wait as well.

And, second truth be told, I could get offended at the entire commonplace and plain jane remark but I choose to take it as a compliment. The Nidhi Kapoor Story is an important milestone in my writing career and I plan to, want to, evolve as a writer with every such milestone.

Anyway before I get into a rant, to summarize, writing is a battle between prowess with words to create poetry vs intent of narrating the story as if you’re talking out loud. I am definitely the later kinds. What about you? What is your forte? Writing poems? Talking / Thinking out loud?

Nidhi Kapoor BSODed

Posted originally on The Nidhi Kapoor Blog. This is a slightly modified version.

Unlike most writers, I write on a Windows based laptop. And I initially used tools like Omniwriter, Scrivener etc to get things written.

But then, as I went along, despite all the rich features that these writing tools offer, I craved for simplicity and flow. And thus, once I reached beyond 50,000 words, I moved my files back to good old Microsoft Word. All was hunky dory, things were great, till the blue monster showed his face. I am talking about Blue Screen Of Death aka BSOD.

The dreaded BSOD

Just when I was writing the climax scene of the story, the computer crashed. And along with it, it took the entire word document. And no, I could not recover it. The word document got corrupted and I tried retrieving it but despite all efforts and all software, only thing I got was a 200 page word document full of gibberish. It was as if my work of the last five months was reduced to the infinite monkeys punching on the keyboard at random.

I have nothing against getting compared to monkeys but what about all those promises I’ve made to all the friends? to myself? the promise I made to readers of tnks? What about my dreams of becoming a full-time writer? There were a million questions and I hit the panic button. And hit it again and again, so hard that I almost broke it.

But somehow, while I was shitting bricks, I remembered that I still have the story saved as a Scrivener project. I fired it up and voila, I had a large chunk of story there. I had shifted to Word about two weeks back and hence apart from whatever I did in last two weeks, the entire story was there.

If I could be honest, since I started writing the book, the last two weeks were when I made real progress, real breakthrough in the story. I made it lot more deeper, lot more interesting, lot more complex. I added layers and introduced more characters. I even killed an important character and un-killed someone who I had killed in the second chapter. Sadly, I cant recover any of what I wrote in last few days but the bright side is that I was not back to zero. Just that two weeks of my life went down the drain.

Thankfully, the story, the plot and the twists are still fresh in my head. With little extra effort, I am sure I can recreate all of it. Despite the setbacks, I remain committed to my deadline of finishing the first draft by end of the year. And I promise I will.

I dont know who to blame about the fiasco. The old laptop, or the operating system, or all the applications installed on my computer, or all the multiple windows that I keep open, or myself for being so callous about something as important as #tnks.

So lessons learnt?

A. Always always always take backup. Three times. And buy insurance. Just that you need to understand the pricing.
B. Keep calm and carry on. I shouldn’t have panicked. Things always tend to workout in the end.

Someone buy me this notepad!

Thats it!

And while I work towards writing longer and harder to finish the book in time, do help me spread word by sharing / liking the fb page. I am also looking for someone to help me with design around the book. If you know someone who can help me, do let me know.

And finally, please let me know if you would want to read and review the first draft of The Nidhi Kapoor Story.

What to expect from #tnks?

Originally posted on the Nidhi Kapoor blog.

Dear Reader of The Nidhi Kapoor Story,

In my opinion, a book is like any other product. Or a service. You pay a certain amount of money to buy / avail it and you put in a certain amount of time using / consuming it. And in return, you expect a certain amount of satisfaction. Money and time are tangible, I can measure them. Satisfaction is not. I cant measure it.

So before you commit either of the two, I thought I would make you aware of a few things about The Nidhi Kapoor Story (#tkns). This could also act as a sort of a disclaimer. Disclaimer in terms of what to expect from the story.

The story is very important to me
#tnks is one of the most important projects of my life. For a lot of reasons. For starters, this is the first time when I’ve taken a sabbatical and I know what I want to do with. This is the first time I am trying to write a full length fictional book. This is the first time I am going all-in with a project. This is the first time when I am actually trying to work towards a long held dream.

The promise
I made the promise that it would be worth your time to read the story. And I would do everything to fulfill the promise. I hope you would like what you read. If you do, please let me know. Nothing works better than feedback from people who’ve liked what you’ve written.

However if you do not like it, its even more important that you write to me and let me know that you did not like it. The best way to reach me is on email. For a faster response, please ping me on twitter.

As good as I am

#tnks is as good as I am. Not more. Not less. I am putting my best foot forward with it. I am putting in 6 very important months of my life on this project. And this is a very visible project. I do no want to fail at it. Someone once said, “I am scared of failure”. So am I. I will do whatever it takes to not fail with this story. I even made a tiny post-it note and stuck on my wall.

But all said and done, the story would be as good as I am. It will be bound by my imagination.

English as a language
I am not a native English speaker and I am not good with complex constructs of the language. Please expect a lot of mistakes in grammar, sentence formation, tenses, verbs etc. I am trying hard to improve on these things but I think I have hit my limit. I may not be able to come upto the standards of literary geniuses and The Grammar Nazis.

So, while reading it, if you find that I have massacred the language, please excuse me.

Original Story
The Nidhi Kapoor Story is an original piece of work. I hate the very concept of plagiarism.

Years back I used to maintain a fan-site for Lucky Ali and one fine morning I see pieces from the text I wrote appear on front page of Delhi Times without any attribution or credit. I couldn’t take on the might of TOI and I couldn’t do anything about it. For them, it was one of the million pieces of texts that they print on their paper. For me, it was my life. I put everything I had into that website. And I felt cheated. I felt dejected. I felt as if I have been robbed of everything I had. Its an extreme reaction and that blog meant that much to me. It taught me how it feels to be on the receiving end.

Thanks to that incident, I have never even thought of copying from someone else. And I am proud to say that the Nidhi Kapoor Story is my original work. The story, characters, plots, locations, everything else is inspired from real life people and real life incidents. However, if it does looks similar to something else, I assure you that it is purely coincidental. Please do let me know if you find similarities.

I guess that’s about it for the time being. Hope these things help you make an informed decision about #tnks. In case you choose to read it, I would love to know what you thought about the story. And if you dont, I would love to know why you dint. Please do write in.

And, like always, thank you for reading this.

Regards,
Saurabh Garg

P.S.: This may not be important for anyone else, but for me, its very very important. Because I would be custodian for your investment. Its my moral responsibility to ensure that your time and money is spent well.

The curious case of missing comments / viewers

For someone who’s been writing for almost ten years now, I have a surprisingly low count of regular readers (the exact number is here). And subsequently, lower count of comments on the blog.

I mean its not really surprising, considering that I am not really popular (even in my friends’ circle). And if I was interesting or funny or intelligent or a loud mouth or opinionated or smart or an eloquent speaker or a photographer or a social media expert or well endowed or well versed with history or connected or rich or something similar, people might have read my blog. But I am not any of these. In fact I am like Hugh Grant in Notting Hill and “…even my mum has a tough time remembering my name…“.

Thing is, all this while, I did not matter if someone read, commented on the blog. After all this blog is more like a conversation with myself, on things that I find interesting (or things that catch my fancy). But now that I am trying to get my first novel out, I need to solve this curious case of missing comments. Simply because I need people to read what I write and give me feedback on how/what I write.

So here is a quick list of reasons why people might not be reading this blog regularly…

I am Joe Nobody and since this blog talks about my life, my boring life, no one is interested in it.
I am an average writer. Or may be I am a bad writer. Or may be I dont even qualify to be called a writer. And thus reading this blog is not the best use of their time.
There is no “theme” to this blog. I write about a wide range of things (poker, writing, travel, getting old etc) and most things I write are my conversations with myself and hence people dont want to read an ill-informed guy talk about a million things, to himself!
What I write do not make sense. Worse, whatever I write does not provoke any thoughts in those who read. Its like eating bland food. You stuff yourself with a lot but you do not enjoy the process of eating. You know that you have had a lot, but you dint enjoy it. That.
May be, I do not know my target audience and thus my product has no real market per se. A typical marketing problem. And just to put things in context, I am a post-graduate in marketing.
I dont market my blog.
People do not have time to read blogs. They are happy with 140 characters. And blogs by celebrities. And other such people.

There may be other reasons why people do not read my blog but at this point in time, I can only think of these 7.

I mean, to be honest there is nothing on this blog that someone would want to read on a regular basis. If I wasnt myself, I would not read it! Most people (out of 100 odd that come everyday on this blog) land here by either searching for some lyrics or hunting for startup reviews or using complex queries that somehow point to my blog. Or something frivolous like that. Chasing multidisciplinary expertise has its own disadvantages I guess.

Of course thanks to this blog, I have had the opportunity to meet quite a few people that I wouldn’t have met otherwise. But like all mortals, I want tangible gratification and all that. And for (an aspiring) writer there is no better gratification that readers and comments from those readers.

May be over the next few weeks, I would try and get people to start reading what I write. Not because I am hungry for gratification. I mean that is a very important reason but also because every reader that reads and shares his/her feedback helps me improve and makes me aware of my mistakes and makes me a better writer. Remember that thing I wrote about Anton Ego?

And starting with this one, any advice anyone? Why do you think I dont get traffic on my blog? Why do you think I dont get comments?

P.S.: If you want to point about grammar and long sentances, I am working on that. I still think in Hindi and translate in English before I write 🙁

Streak of last ten days

BSOD + Bill Gates!

Yesterday, the post-a-day streak of last ten days got interrupted. Streaks are broken? Or are interrupted? I dont know. I dont care. But I did not write anything yesterday. And funny thing is that I am not feeling bad about it or something. I am just disappointed about not writing. And I am disappointed about not feeling bad.

If I tried hard, I could have continued with the streak. I mean I knew that I was going to be out of Mumbai and away from a computer for a large part of the day. I was counting on coming back and write before I sleep. But when I reached back, I was really unwell and could not write.

So, like everyone else who does not work, I have an excuse to fall back on. Damn!

But anyway, the one day interruption does not really mean a lot. I just need to ensure that I continue writing a post-a-day. And for the future, I plan my time better. And try and foresee the problems that I could be in when I am writing.

So whats next? A post on this blog! What else. Wait for it.