Like most people, my love for writing grew from my love for reading. As a kid, I read everything I could; newspapers, flyers, ingredients on tin food wrappers to tattered comics from street vendors. I kept reading, and my appetite for the written word grew leaps and bounds with every passing year, but it never occurred to me that I could write, I did not write anything of significance until I reached college, until I stumbled upon online blogs, and thriving online forums.
I created a blog, and began writing about my life in general, about things I read, things I cared about, and things I felt deeply connected to, mostly with the objective of doling out a fresh perspective on old things, but I mostly ended up sharing agreeable thoughts.
Keeping up the blog, although as regular as rain in a desert, taught me some tough lessons: Reading is easy, thinking about writing is easy, but writing is a real thick hide. If you ever want to learn about procrastination, take up an exercise regimen or even better, take up writing. Writing requires deliberate effort to focus, keep still, and keep at it for hours together to come up with something devoid of clichés. There is one cliché for you. Of course, mastering the syntax, semantics, and tricks of the language, and holding it all in the head can be daunting, even for Hercules of a writer.
The notion of being a writer for is a highly romanticized one. My vision of the writer was a person, who would sit in his pajamas and write in long hand from morning till afternoon, and then read whatever he liked until late in the day, of course he was still in his pajamas. There were no difficulties, obstacles or whatsoever - a perfect way to spend your life. A few months after starting the blog, I realized, my vision was blurred, my notion far removed from reality, and that I needed an appointment with an ophthalmologist.
While writing a personal letter can bring about a sense of freedom and liberation by letting out all the scattered thoughts playing hide and seek in your head, writing to a larger group is like stripping yourself in public, and if you haven't exercised regularly, the potbelly, the love handles, and the flabby flesh will only make you a laughing stock.
For me, there are two kinds of writers; the first who dread the process of writing, but write it anyway, and the second kind, who dread the process of writing, and wait for the best day. I'm not proud, but I belong the second kind.
