Writer’s Block

Talk to Do ratio

If the numbers are to go by, this is the worst year of my life so far, in terms of number of posts I’ve made on this blog.

I mean look at the screenshot. This is the twelfth year of writing a blog and apart from the first two, the only other year when I wrote so less was 2010. And in the last four year, I have averaged more than 100 posts per year. Why do I care about how much I write? Because I am a writer. And I want to be better one at that. And unless I practice my craft, I will not become what I want to become.

Like all other lapses when I haven’t been able to write for long duration, I have multiple excuses. The first one among those is that work has kept me busy. The other is that I just havent felt like writing.

Now, is that a good thing? Of course not. And what am I doing about it? Nothing as yet.

So here’s the deal. I will post something on the blog everyday, starting today. Till the end of the year. We should thus end the year with 150 odd posts – making this year the second best year of my blogging life. Now that’s a great goal to chase!

I know. I know. I have made this promise umpteen times in the past. But then in the past I was not touching 33. And I am not getting any younger anytime. The time to do shit is now.

Oh, one more thing. A dear friend (RN09Dec) recently told me that I start a million projects and then never work on those. And when I do work, I dont finish. When I discussed this with kAgE and Agony Aunt, kAgE told me not bother as the projects left unfinished are left abandoned for a reason. And AA told me that my “talk to do” ratio tends to zero and in long run, people who have a high talk to do ratio do well. And I want to do well. And I shall work on improving this. Any tips anyone?

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.

Untitled. 18 Jan 2014.

Crib Alert. This is a whiny piece of text. You may not want to read this.

We are almost 20 days into 2014 and I am already hoping that it gets over fast. To me, it seems as if the world is out to get me. To drag me down. To create obstacles in my path.

I know that I am wrong and this is never the case. Almost.

But these many coincidences can’t really happen at the same time. Mathematically, its impossible. A coin toss can’t continue to fall on the same face all the time. There are so many things that are going in opposite direction (from as planned) that if I made a list, it can reach the moon.

I can actually make and submit a long list of things that are dragging me down.

But to what effect? To whom? How would it help? God up there would look at it and help me fix things? I am not sure about God. If He had to help He would’ve helped already. No? Been some years that I have been drifting around here.

But I’d rather not.

I want to fight this battle with time. The one we are losing with every passing second. The one we are lagging behind in every minute. The one that takes us closer to the end with every passing year.

There are two kind of things that affect me (or anyone else for that matter). Things that I can control. And things that I cant. I can work on the first set of things. And ignore the other.

So the fact that I have been lazy and busy, I can fix it. I can blame is on preoccupation with a freelance project that I’ve taken up. I can blame it on weather. I can blame it on things at home. I can blame it on my general boredom with life and all that. I can blame it on a lot of other things.

But the fact of the matter is that I am singlehandedly responsible for my laziness. No one else is. I need to stop wasting time. Our time is limited and I can not spend it in not doing things.

Further, this laziness is already affecting everything that I want to achieve in 2014. My health, the book, career, money, love et al. I don’t know how its affecting my non-existent love life, but I want to believe that there is some karmic connection somewhere. Again, the affects are evident. In last twenty days, the story hasn’t moved a lot, I haven’t posted on my blog, I haven’t written my ten ideas a day, I haven’t met new people, I haven’t stopped spending money on frivolous things, I haven’t become any slimmer or wiser, I haven’t even made any attempts whatsoever to lose weight, etc etc.

Apologies. I said I wont crib and I wont make a list. Let me leave this hanging here.

Coming to things that I can’t control that fuck my head, its again a very long list. It may not reach the moon but it would reach zero gravity for sure.

Sunanda Pushkar for starters. I heard about it and was shocked beyond words. She was in news just a day before and I cant explain the extreme step. I don’t know what really prompted her to take her life but I sincerely believe that overly intrusive social media has had a role to play in her decision. If I could, I would really really try and stop those jokes and quips that the world made on her.

Even though I did not know her and I did not make any of the aforementioned jokes on her, as a participant on “social media”, I feel responsible for her decision. I have been trying to write about her, to her for more than an hour but I haven’t been able to. There are a very few occasions when words fail me, this is one of those. I just hope that these incidents are not repeated. I hope that all the funny people learn a lesson. For our five minutes of fame, we have abetted her in killing herself.

The other thing that has left me numb in my head is the gross unfairness of the world that we live in. I dont want to write about the specific thing at a place that is in public domain but I am deeply moved by it. Its proof enough for me that God is merely a figment of our imagination. If He were around, I am sure He would not appreciate the unfairness. No no, I am not blaming God. I am merely saying that things around me are unfair and I need to start living with those.

Then these is this thing about shit happening at home. I can’t control it. The fact that I am too poor to afford a house that I want to live in, in Mumbai, I am left at the mercy of landlords and brokers. More than anything else, these things drain me out of my energy. And what do I do to get this energy back? I try eating junk food. To get that temporary kick from carbs and sugar. What happens in the long run? I go down the spiral!

You see my point? No? Ok.

Anyway, enough of a rant. Gotta get going and get some words written on the Nidhi Kapoor Story. It’s so close to the finish line.

Before I end this, I just hope that these 20 days are not an indication of the entire year to come and things improve as we go along. If they dont, I wont know what to do.

P.S.: Yet another reason why I blog. I don’t write personal diary and this blog is hardly read by anyone (may be excluding prospective employers). Ranting things out of my system help me get back on the track. Imagine climbing on a really high, tall place and screaming on top of you lungs. So loud that your throat hurts. Despite being that loud, there is a good chance that no one hears you. But then do you scream for others to hear you? No. You dont. You scream because you want to throw shit out of your system.

This blog, this rant is my attempt at screaming like that. On top of my voice. Loud enough to clean my system. Clean the shit going on in my head. That.

Thank you very much. Why? I dont know.

Now hiring. A manager to manage me.

Hotlinked from here.

I havent written for well over a week now.

Not that I did not have things to write about. There are some 112 drafts on my blogger console. My evernote account is overflowing with blogpost ideas. There is the 7 things project. Of course there is Nidhi Kapoor. And there’s no writer’s block to stifle my creativity. I am just being lazy. I am procrastinating for no reason. Nothing else. I know that our time is limited and there is so much to do. And yet I am
lazy. Like Neo says, “laziness pays now, hard work later”, I am trapped
in the lure of instant gratification.

Come to think of it, I left my job to write. And I havent wrote for half the days since I quit. I should be ashamed of myself. I am.

I think its only about discipline. I know I want to be the master of my time. I tried working in that direction. And I failed. But I did not know that it would be so tough to learn this art of mastering time. I just cant seem to prioritize my time. I still want to do everything and I want to do all those things now. And come to think of it, I am a grown ~~man~~ old man. And an old bipolar man suffering from ADHD.

Anyway, whats done is done. I will try and make writing my priority. If I have meetings lined up, I will wake up early. If I am travelling, I will make time to write. Even if I am not feeling like it, I will force myself to spurt out 2500 words a day. A steep target but I will try and get it. I need a visual dashboard to be able to measure my progress on. There has to be some app for it.

The app reminds me, I want to hire someone to manage me. Yes, someone who I can report into. I tried doing that last year but could not find someone stern enough to make me work. I want to try it again.

The idea of having a boss is that there is constant pressure and motivation from someone else. There is someone to keep a track of what I am doing and what I am not. Frees up time to get things done. And no, I am not talking randomly here. I have learnt that I work better when I have deadlines and bosses to report into. I work better when a stick is egging me all the time. Carrots dont work for me. Anyone wants to volunteer? I am serious about this. Can discuss terms et al in strict confidence.

Here it is – the writer’s block!

I think its a been a week since I started that little project and it was good going. Till some days back. When the writers block hit me. And I did not write then. I did not write yesterday either. And I did not write the day before. And the day before that.

I have all the excuses that the men have come up with, since time immemorial – no time, no inspiration, no ideas, no laptop to write on, no electricity at home etc.

But end of the day, all these are mere excuses and nothing else. I really enjoyed those nights when I dint sleep and I wrote. When I deliberated over each word that I want to put forth on the blog. When I searched for etymology, origins, synonyms, antonyms etc of words. When I went back and forth and changed tenses and grammar, since I suck so much at it. When I desperately tracked new visitors and ~~growth~~ stagnation in the charts. ~~When I reply to numerous comments~~ (for some reason I still dont get any comments on the blog, so cant track those). When I pimped the links of new posts on social networks and other such places. When I waited desperately to get feedback on what I write from friends and strangers.

~~Those were good days~~ It was a brilliant week. And that week taught me that I am not as fickle minded as I think I am and once I put my head to something, I can actually do it. Good news for Nidhi Kapoor. I sincerely hope Nidhi does not meet the same fate as the guard of clock tower. In fact I hope that Nidhi would bring the good old guard back to life, if all goes well.

And there is another learning. I got obsessed with writing. Everything else that I spend my time on, ideas, businesses, talking, reading, exploring, surfing , thinking was all put to rest. I was focused on writing. The entire day, I would look for things and ideas that I could write about. And I could not wait for the night to arrive before I pen the thoughts down. Apart from writing, the other two things that have ngrossed me so much were code and poker. Thanks to my MBA, I cant code no more. And thanks to my peanut sized brain, I can not play poker no more.

But, but I can write. No one else can take that away from me. Its a singular activity that requires little or no influence from other factors. I dont need money, I dont need resources, I dont need physical fitness, I dont need a large team. All I need is little motivation and I need Google to research what I am writing about. For something like clock tower, I dont even need to research! I just need to do. To turn up everyday. And ship. A really good friend told me about how Charles Dickens wrote a lot of his work. He would publish things in a periodical and then work on the next chapters. I think I can relate to what he was doing. May be he also needed motivation, push to work. And this was his way to continue writing the longish pieces of texts. Note to self – read the tale of two cities.

Coming back, I need to get back to writing. And start writing lot more. Everyday. 1000 words.