On Writing

And on the 7th day…

Its been six days on the trot that I have published something on my blog. Calls for a celebration. I cant think of a time when I did that last. Or ever. Its important because as I go along, writing will become the single most activity that I would engage in. And every day I write, takes me closer to the goal of being a writer and making enough money to be able to pay my bills with it. In fact I read these two posts on Pressfield’s blog that talk about money. It gives me a lot of heart. I may not be a good writer but as he says, “But anecdotally I think it’s true; those who hang in, eventually find a way.”

I hope to find a way as well. I just need to keep at it.

So, coming back to the 7th day, apparently on the 7th day, even the Gods rested. But then I am not really close to being a God and hence I need to work. And while I am at it, working on The Nidhi Kapoor Story, I am listening to Summer of 69. And despite whatever others may say, its still cool to me. Here do listen to it.

And until next time, stay awesome. And do read my other posts. And do share your feedback please.

And thus, I write!

So, why do I write?

Here are ten reasons. In no particular order.

A. Writing makes me a better thinker. Some people think best when they are talking. Some do it best while making mind maps. Some do it when they are alone. Some do it on the pot, or in the shower. Some do while sleeping. I think, I think best when I am writing. Most of my best ideas have come when I have been scribbling on a notepad or writing on my blog. And thus, I write.

B. Serendipity. I define serendipity as happy accidents. And I love serendipity and the concept of happy accidents. Writing has allowed me to make these lucky accidents happen. And not one, not two, a lot of them have happened. See C for details. And thus, I write.

C. People. I have met some really incredible people, thanks to my writing. And thanks to this blog. Not that these people have left me money in their wills or have given me employment opportunities or taken me out on dates or something. They have just made my life richer, fuller and happier. If not for my writing and my blog, I would have never met those people. And I would have been deprived of their awesomeness! And thus, I write.

D. Superpower. Writing is my secret superpower. I am not a real superhero and I cant really save the world. Yet. But I am sure someday I would be able to become a real superhero and make my writing my superpower. And save the world. And thus, I write.

E. Writing is my special move. Its my signature shot. Think of a fat old Indian man. You cant expect him to have a moon walk that separates him from all the other dancers. He cant play a late cut or a reverse sweep or a helicopter shot that separates him from all the other batsmen. But then, he can write. In a style, tone, manner that is uniquely his and sets him apart from others. I want to reinforce this style, tone and manner. And thus, I write. Btw, does this mean that I strive to be different? I dont know that yet. But I do know that I am a specimen of home-sapiens and I have the gift of communication and I want to abuse it.

F. Rewarding. No, I haven’t won any contests but I’ve left behind a tangible trail, with each word that I have written over the years .Over the last ten years, I have written 1200 odd posts. That’s a long trail. Of course it all could be noise in a world where everyone is talking about everything all the time. But then these trails are interesting. These allow me to look back and see how I have evolved. These allow happy accidents to happen (see B). And thus, I write.

G. Its my shot at immortality. Do I want to be immortal in the first place? I will skip this philosophical questions. Because I dont know the answer yet. But I will answer something else. Why do I write? Because writing gives me an opportunity to create something that would outlast me. Something that the next generations would appreciate. Imagine leaving the world a better place when you say goodbye. To a powerless and spineless individual like me, I may not create anything of enduring values but I can create and leave behind a school of thought that inspires. I want to be that giant that invites people to stand on my shoulders and see farther. And thus, I write.

H. Writing is immersive. When I am writing, when I let my fingers dance on the keyboard, they do the dance by themselves, I love it. I forget all the fuckeries of the world affecting me. I become God. I can control the output. Actually I cant. I become so immersed in writing that I become immune to the world outside my head. Its like meditation. Its flow. Its like a rush from a drug. Its like orgasm. Its the reason. And thus, I write.

I. Writing makes me explore. Everytime I write, I want to do my best. It makes me hunt for new things that I can use to say the old things in a better way. Bad example is words. I learn new words. I learn idioms. I read what other writers write. I explore. I go into the unknown. I discover new things. I invent one or two. I am like that free man that Stephen King talked about in Shawshank. I am on an adventure. And I dont know what is on the other side of the adventure. And I love these adventures. I have a curious mind and I love to get lost. Writing allows me to get lost. And then writing helps me find a way out. And thus, I write.

And lastly and most importantly, probably the real reason why I write,

X. I dont know why I write! Before this one, here is a quote from the Joker (of the Batman fame), “Do I really look like a guy with a plan? You know what I am? I’m a dog chasing cars. I wouldn’t know what to do with one if I caught it. You know, I just… do things. The mob has plans, the cops have plans, Gordon’s got plans …“. Like Joker, I am a man without plans. I write because I write. I dont know what to do after I’ve written. I let my writing hang on an anonymous blog in a secluded corner of the world wide web. If someone stumbles upon it, great. I get happy. If that someone leaves a comment, I feel awesome. When that someone writes into me and sends some praises down my way, I feel as if all the effort that it has ever taken towards writing has been rewarded. And when more than one people write in, it starts working like a drug. An addiction. I get addicted to emails and comments. And then I become a junkie. I wait for my daily fix. When I stop getting this fix, I get restless and do things like this. And then I go into rehabilitation and come out cleaner. And then like that itch that you have to scratch, I suddenly fire up the word editor and write again. And the vicious circle starts all over again. But you know it now. Right? That I am man without a plan. I’m a dog chasing cars. I wouldn’t know what to do with one if I caught it. And thus, I write!

And thus, I write.

Notes from Shawshank Redemption

The Shawshank fever is up on me. Here are a few posts in the last couple of days about it.

So anyway, I saw the film and I decided to read the original short story by Stephen King on which the book is based. And I made notes alongside and I tried to think of Nidhi’s story while reading it. Here are some notes that I made while I was doing so. Might be of interest to some of you.

Oh, this assumes that you are aware of the Shawshank as a story. If you are not, a quick glance to the wikiedia page would bring you upto speed. And if you were to watch just one more movie in the rest of your life, please go see Shawshank. It’s that good. Not just me, but all those people on IMDB agree as well, for it tops the list of best movies made. Ever.

So coming back, here are the notes.

Nidhi’s story is similar to Andy’s. Not the jail and other things but the one before that. A society girl, a pro sportsman and an estranged husband. King took less than 6 pages to paint such a vivid picture of the story that I want to continue reading it even after it is over. I, on the other hand expect to take about 300 pages to narrate it. And I am assuming that someone would actually sit for all the hours it takes to read 300 pages and finish reading the story.
Apart from Andy’s story, there are a million simple little side plots in the story that are stories in themselves (Red’s story, the guy who smuggled his coin collection in prison and hid it somewhere, the clerk from the store that testifies against Andy, Jake the pigeon, the boss at Foodway etc.). Nidhi’s story on the other hand, is as flat, simple, straight, plain, bland as they come. Would one single long bland story interest readers? I dont know. I will find out though.
The dialogues are as amazing as they come. They are preachy, insightful and yet made up of simple words that I and other common folk would understand and comprehend. For Nidhi, I am not relying on a lot of dialogues but it would be nice to have some. I will have to work on it. I will do it.
Analogies (“every one of those seven has an ass as hard as the water drawn up from a mineral-spring well”, “the pigeon was just as dead as a turd”, “cockroach on a wedding cake”) etc. King seems like a master of these. I dont think I can cook such things. I dont think I have a vivid enough imagination to think of how to compare a prisoner who has broke out of prison to a cockroach on a wedding cake. Thankfully I dont really have any prisoners in Nidhi’s story but there are more than one shady characters. I need to get creative and start seeing a lot more cake shops, turds, mineral-spring wells. You get the drift I think.
I need to get creative with simple objects and make the narrative better. King calls a ten dollar note, a picture of Alexander Hamilton. I later found that Hamilton is one of those former presidents of the US and graces the ten dollar bill. The way Gandhi does most of our bills. I could have never imagined that I could call currency notes anything but notes. Or cash. Or wad. Or something like that. And not just currency, there is a lot. So I think once I finish one draft of Nidhi’s story, I would get busy with these interesting things.
Characters. I have come to understand that a story is about three things. Characters. Characters. And Characters. Everything else is useless. If you ignore the cliche and indulge me, most stories have the same structure and same plot. A common man is wronged by a situation or a person. The man then fights back and avenges the wrongdoing. And then lives happily ever after or dies in peace. Campbell actually wrote a book about this. You must read it if you are interested in writing or interested in characters. The way King creates these characters is amazing. Like the Warden. He does not talk about how bad or corrupt he is, there are only degrees that he can talk about. Instead he talks about another Warden and then simply says that the new Warden was twenty times badder than the previous one. Simple and yet effective.

All these things that I could take a note of, dawned onto me while I read the short story during the day, interspersed with bouts of fitful sleeping and trying to better my time at solving a Rubik’s Cube over a shitpot. It stands at 3 minutes and 40 seconds at the time of writing this. The world record, to put things in perspective, is 5.66 seconds.

To summarize, I have realized that I am not even half good as the tip of the nail of the pinkie of King’s lesser used hand. I know its early days for me. But then, I am on the road already and there is no stopping me now. The question is, how far do I get to travel on it and do I meet Stephen King somewhere down the road?

You, as the reader of the Nidhi Kapoor Story, could help me along that road. If you read it, please share your feedback on it. Make it as brutal and as critical. Point out flaws and hide the good bits. Make me suffer in the agony of my failure. Help me see things that I cant. May be, just may be, you would thus help me move on the road faster! And you know what? Thank you in advance for doing so.

And like I said in the beginning, do read the short story and do see the movie if you haven’t.

P.S.: This is day 5 on the trot that I have published something on my blog! Yay baby! Here are the links to the posts on 17th, 18th, 19th and 20th.

P.P.S.: If you are interested in reading a slightly modified version of this post that includes some headings, I posted it on the Nidhi Kapoor blog. No, not Nidhi’s blog. But the book’s blog.

Untitled 17Oct2013

Its been some days that I have written. Not 1000 words on this blog. Not 3000 words for tnks. Not 5000 for immortality. Not. A. Single. Word.

And on last count, before this piece, its been seventeen days, (one seven , 17) since 922 that I’ve written. 922 is important because after 922, its 100 days to the end of the year and I paced tnks to end in 100 days.

Out of 25 days since 922, when I started tracking my progress, I have not written for 17 days. Well done Mr. Garg.

This time, I dont want to blame anyone for my laziness. Like all the other times, I can pile it on people, friends, family, health, etc. But I know I’d not be truthful about it. I know the ones who want to write, will write even if they are in a battlefield and their writing arm has been cleaved off their body. People even work two jobs and then write with whatever time is available to them. Remember Hugh’s sex and cash theory?

Time and again I have realized that I want to be a writer. And time and again I have realized that I lack the discipline to be one. But then, if I cant be disciplined enough to chase my biggest interest, biggest passion, making my fingers dance on the keyboards, what good am I to talk of grandiose plans to make a dent?

I am actually on leave from regular employment while I try to find my footing as a writer. And as a writer, my biggest responsibility towards myself (and no one else) is to actually write. Even if its a small silly piece, I have to write. Even at the face of rejections, I need to keep sending those letters to publishers and editors. Even if I dont have any ~~fans~~ patrons, I must not lose hope.

That thing they say? The one about baby steps? I need to take those. And keep taking those even when I stumble and fall down. Wait, I cant stumble or fall down. I am not taking any steps in the first place!

I know about my laziness and I know that I have issues on finishing things. With tnks, I am determined that I would finish it. I have made promises in the past and yet I have not done anything about those. I have tried to hire someone to manage me and yet I have been unsuccessful at it. I even put a nice calendar on my writing table. I even told someone to collect 1000 bucks from me for everyday that I dont write. And despite all the emotional, financial, mental penalties, I have not been able to deliver. May be I can not. May be I need to quit? May be. But then, not before Nidhi Kapoor is out in the market. Even if I have to self publish it.

I have read about artiste that were lazy and were masters of procrastination and yet they ended up doing ok in life. Can I, with all the baggage that I carry on my shoulders, end up like those? When I look back at this blog some years from now, will I be able to laugh it away? I dont know. Maybe I will. Maybe I wont.

But for the time being, I am depressed. Very very depressed. I think I can relate to all those have beens and almost theres. We all know that there is some spark and we all know that we have potential. Just that we fail to use it to ignite large fires.

And the worst part, I dont even have alcohol to fall back on. What alternatives do I have? This Calvin strip is very close to how I feel.

On self doubt. And a promise.

That feeling when self doubt creeps in so slowly on you that you dont realise. And then when you see it, you’re shocked about it being there
— Saurabh / SG (@saurabh) September 28, 2013

The other day, I was reading Bloodline by Sidney Sheldon. Its one of his classic works where you have intrigue, mystery, debauchery, murders, backstabbing and other such things. While I was reading it, I could immediately compare it to The Nidhi Kapoor Story. I dont know if the comparison is valid, Sidney being a master storyteller and I, a rookie. But after I read it, I knew that its not going to be as easy.

I thought telling stories (captivating stories, stories that make people want to read again and again, stories that people would want to share, stories that are real, stories that people can relate, stories that people want to go back to, stories that people do not want to end et al) would be easy. I thought I’d just need a pen and a chair. And a few months. After all I have been writing a blog for almost ten years now. And what if I am not comfortable with English. What if I suck at vocabulary and grammar. What if I often leave things incomplete. I could do this one. I just needed time. How hard could it be? Right?

No.

I couldn’t have been more wrong.

I started working on Nidhi Kapoor around May of this year. And by July I was convinced that it is a story that I want to tell. And I took the plunge. And its been two months now that I have been at it. And the progress is painstakingly slow. So slow that one monkey on one typewriter could do a faster, and may be a better, job. If the infinite monkeys got together, they’d make a mockery out of me.

Reading Sidney’s book was like a shock. The one that I needed and yet did not want. That writing is not going to be easy.

I now have a new found respect for the likes of Chetan Bhagat. I may flog them for writing boring cliched stories with fancy titles. But they have been able to finish what they started and they backed it up with all their might. I am sure that when they started writing, at some point, they would have been in the same space as I am right now. But they overcome the insecurity to actually finish what they had started. They defined the odds. Quitting is so easy. So easy, its a wonder how so many people actually finish. Even if the finishers are less than 0.001% of the ones that start. ~~sgMS~~ A dear friend calls it closure. And I suck at it.

Self doubt and lack at achieving closure. Brilliant combination. The perfect recipe for failure. Odds are that I would fail with Nidhi. That I would not reach closure.

But I will not.

I. Will. Not. Fail.

I may not get to publish it. But I will finish it. And I would do a damn good job at it. And I would ensure that whoever reads it, its worth their time. Thats the greatest responsibility that I have as a writer. That the reader, her time or money is not wasted when they read what I’ve written. And I promise that your time or money would not be wasted while you read Nidhi’s story.

I know that my story is not even a fraction of what a Bloodline is. And mind you, Bloodline is great but its not even the greatest piece of fiction that I know of. There’s Godfather, there’s Count of Monte Cristo. There’s a long list.

But what I know is that I have made a promise. And for a change, I am going to keep it. Despite all odds, I’d finish the story.

The good part of this self doubt bit is that all the doubts are creeping in at a stage where I can still work on it. All the lessons are happening at a time where I can still patch the logical and narrative flaws. After all, I am at the 30000 word mark. Far from the 120K that I have planned before I send this to publishers. There’s still time for the Nov. 11 deadline that I have kept for finishing the first draft. Some 40 days. A little discipline and a little grit should see me there.

Just need a little bit of push. A small nudge. An angel to watch me over. A boss that I can report into. Probably I need a Nidhi Kapoor or a Renu Sharma to actually come to life and help me work on this. That would be so cool. No?

The Thinker!

Writing is the toughest job that I’ve ever had. And I’ve had some tough jobs before this. Thing with writing it that you are alone when you are working. Of course you have your support system and friends and other such people around you but when you put pen to paper, you are alone. You are the only one who can move the story forward. You are the one that decides on the next turn the that story would take. If even its a simple one act story, which in my opinion is tougher to write, you need to do it by yourself. You are the planner, you are the designer, you are the expert, you are the executioner and you are the manager.

Writing is one those things that are probably as close to meditation as they can be. You could sit in a room full of writers, you could talk to them about your plot, you can pick their brains. You do whatever but you would have to put the damn thing on paper by yourself. And I am learning that I suck at it.

The first problem for me was to be able to sit at one place for some time and work without getting distracted. I have got that figured out thankfully. I mean I am still working on it but its a start for sure. I move around and all that but I do not have an active Internet connection and the phone is on silent mode to keep out distractions.

The next is to be able to write fast. I mean today it took me about 8 hours to write 3000 words. And not a new story. I had the plot in place. I just had to add a few words and complete the narratives. And it took me 8 hours. At this pace, the three projects that I am working on, I dont think I’d be able to get those done. And all those three are really important to me. I can not compromise on any. And all three come with strict deadlines. One ends in 30 days from now, on the 23rd October. And the other two, mid November. So I better learn how to write fast.

And mind you, thats the simple bit. The putting it down on paper bit and the speed with which I write bit. The other things that I need to do to be able to be a good writer, are the tougher ones. Here is a small list.

A. The non stop rounds of editing where you have to kill what you wrote, even if you are fond of it. Even if you loved it
B. Then there is shameless promotion of what you write. I suck at this totally. I dont even put these on facebook. Why is it important? Because every reader is an opportunity for ~~you~~ me to improve ~~your~~ my craft.
C. The dwindling bank balance. Its not directly related to writing but its an occupational hazard for me. For a lot of people, writing comes naturally to them and they can write in the evenings, on the weekends. I, on the other hand, have to struggle for every word that I write. And hence the joblessness.
D. The infinite homework required, just to keep up. This includes learning words like Moxie, Shibboleth and Chagal. Of course unless I use these words in what I write, there is no point. So far, I havent been able to figure out where would I want to use Chagal, unless I am writing about a sub-Saharan adventure. This also includes reading a lot. I dont mind the reading bit though. Just that I am getting used to reading on a computer. I thought I could use a device but nothing like holding an actual book. And nothing like the convenience of an entire computer (not just a tablet or a ebook reader).

Bottom line, its a tough job and I am totally sucking at it. There is no assurance of money / fame / future prospects at the end of it. When I took it up, I did not know that it would be tougher than a full time job. I mean agreed that I have the flexibility to choose my time and I can sleep during the day and I dont have to struggle through traffic for hours but its a tough tough job.

And I am just ranting here. And to the rant, if you are a struggling writer as well, you may want to do these following things.

Subscribe to a word a day. There is nothing like an extensive vocabulary. And since I still think in Hindi and translate it to English when I write, my writing it limited. I use wordsmith.org. You may choose whatever you like. I am sure there are quite a few of these.
Read about writing. You must read a lot anyway but read about writing. Almost all the great writers have written about their art/craft. Right now, I am reading Chuck Palahniuk’s essays and Stephan King’s On Writing.

That’s it for the time being. Oh, I have set up a mailing list where I would send periodic updates on how the book is coming along. If you are interested, you may subscribe to it. I promise not to spam you. Just leave your details in the form below.

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