After shutting myself up for almost 173589 times and hammering the words “you can” into my brain with what was probably Thor’s hammer- I have started writing the second post. So where were we? Yeah so its pretty evident that somehow the second post takes longer to be penned- maybe because there’s an inherent pressure on it to be structured and in some ways better. While writing, thankfully, has come naturally to me for most of my life- there have been months when even structuring a subjective answer for courses I was rather fond of felt tedious. Somehow the moment you read your own piece for the 3rd time you can see these innumerable holes which could have been filled better. Not to mention the anxiety of ‘how will it be perceived’. So I have decided to make this post about writing, unless I de-board my choo-choo train of thoughts at a quaint station called Cinemaville.

I guess most writers go through a similar road- from wobbly thoughts to coherent and presentable words. The journey or process however, must vary. Right before I started writing this post, my research on how to successfully blog made it clear that by now I should have had at least 6 ready-to-post articles; and now ideally should have been the time I edit and revise. Since the only ready item in your pro-procastinator’s life is the dinner that my dad has diligently prepared its safe to say I am going to fumble for words and thoughts alike.

Writing is hard- when you write you expose yourself to your readers and being observed by a whole lot of people cannot be easy. Its like trying to have a conversation with an empty screen- literally (unless you count the voice in your head). If you are familiar with Feluda, I am a lot like Lal Mohan Ganguly- I try to imagine and fixate on the end result even before I have a hint of the path that is supposed to lead me to it. Same is the case when you are writing. You fixate so much on it being an interesting read that you definitely lose out on the joy of the process. Oh and the weight of what will THEY think! Not only have I steered clear of many topics in the past but I have also ended up contradicting myself many a times due to this ever burning question. And do you know what’s the funniest part? I cannot even define who is this “they”. Its an imaginary set of entities that have made themselves comfortable in the darkest corners of your brain and will feed off the last shred of confidence you have left.

So after you have crossed this hurdle, there comes a quiet little place where you bare your thoughts. This is overwhelming to say the least. You suddenly see yourself faced with the parts and pieces of your belief system that you are yet to outgrow or which contradict popular beliefs in your community. You can still write about them, but since the freedom of expression has been reduced to a joke in my present scenario, I tend to look for other topics and areas.

Now let’s say you have found the one, you will see it is even more difficult to stay married to it. You will probably realise your concentration span has thinned quicker than your hair; and there is very little you can do about it. So you will go out of your way to make your surroundings writeable- you will ask people around you to be on silent mode and organise your desk to make it pinterest worthy. Oh and the number of times you will brew your coffee! At this rate, I would sooner make a barista than a writer. And then you will sit and sit and sit and sit for hours; and the 70 year old back in your 20 something body will only make it worse. If you thought your concentration was the problem, meet your research skills. If you have some then great! Mine has bought a one way ticket to the Bahamas and is not due to return anytime soon.

With you being married to your topic and your research (and heart) at the write place- all you gotta do is pen it all down. As you do so, you will probably realise you are your worst enemy. Your mind will flash the typos in a brighter than the sun yellow and as you navigate your cursor back to correct it, you will lose your precious line of thought and you have to start from the beginning all over again. This is a vicious not-so-little cycle but then I guess thats been the only way forward for me.

Now that your piece is almost ready- you start editing and revising. If you have immense faith in yourself it should be a fairly simple process. However, if you are anything like me this step would be your ride or die. I have wanted to delete this entire post 15 times already and the fact that it is still here is the leap of faith I have chosen to take. After you have taken a long, hard look at your final result and ironed out the little grammatical creases (the pathos of writing in a language that’s not your mother tongue)- you are all set for it to go out to the world!

I guess what I am trying to say is writing is hard, but not that hard. You will ace it! Does that make sense?