Hello Again - I hope I am back for good

Hello All,

There are not many who follow this blog. However, to the few who do, or did, hello again! I discontinued writing some months back because of 2 main reasons. First, I didn't have much too write about. I now realize that that shouldn't have stopped me. Many people just write gibberish and others find ways to make sense out of it. I could be one of them! The second reason was that I felt that I had lost touch with the skill of writing. Each time I wrote a blog, the words seemed not to do justice to the breadth of emotion that I wanted to express. Moreover, it took too much time to craft a gramatically well balanced paragraph. Accepting it as a skill I didn't have, I dropped blogging altogether.

However, during the past few weeks, I had to write a site-visit report for an NGO I volunteer for. Writing that report reminded me of the joy of writing those well balanced paragraphs that I had come to hate. It still took me many hours to complete the report which a better writer could have finished in only a couple. But still, the joy of reading through those painstakingly well crafterd sentences was a very satisfying compensation indeed. 

My advice to writers who face a block just like I did is to keep it simple! Just go back to the basics of sentence construction. I know that its difficult to stem the flow of thoughts but writing is not about stemming it at all. Its about funneling it. Pour those thoughts slowly and steadily and you will have something well written in the end. 

Random Thoughts - Act I

There is no inspiration to the words that follow. Somebody recently told me that when you start a blog, the usual reason is that you are brimming with ideas. But soon, the ideas desert you and your blog joins the community of the many old, lonely and forgotten blogs.

I have no inspiration. Just a desire to write something. Its not as if I don't have any ideas. I have many opinions and many comments on a variety of issues. But to sit down and express them in an organized manner is a difficult feat. It simply takes the pleasure out of the spontaneity of expression.

I read Jug Suraiya's article today (TOI). He comments on how writers find a flow in their writing and generate reams ad reams of ink-laden sheets without facing the burden of reading their drivel themselves. How true ! I really suspect that Jane Austen thought so much while writing what she wrote. The way her novels are dissected in an English Literature class seems like a perfect example of making a mountain out of a molehill. Give it a rest, please ! I guess reading contemporary fiction makes much more sense in that way. Not only do the writers talk in context of the present day (with which one can relate), the writers themselves can be cross-questioned about their work thereby clarifying if they actually meant to say something meaningful or were they just blabbering on paper after 5 cups of morning coffee.

I feel obligated to continue with the same line of thought expressed in the previous paragraph. But I just don't feel like it. Instead I feel like describing the fluttering curtain of my room which offers an intermittent view of the tall apartment outside. I could set the scene and describe the plastic switchboards and the dull-brown curtain bars and the dripping faucets in the adjoining rest-room. But will it interest someone who reads it. Ive read some books myself and I just cant help but skim over the sections which 'set the scene'. Why do writers write them? Do they really feel that it helps? I don't think so. Maybe its just for their own momentum. Maybe it helps them get into the mood so that they can follow it with the actual story.

Which makes me ask another question. Why does somebody write in the first place? Does he want to serve the masses. Does he feel obligated to express his 'superior' point-of-view? Or does he want to make money. Is writing a means of expression or a means of entertainment?