WRITER’S BLOCK. I’m Gonna Be Dead Now!

You sit in with a mindset to write something great. You have the laptop open in front of you with a steaming cup of coffee by your side, some soft rock or indie-pop playing in low volume, a perfect setting to write down the next masterpiece. But you forget His presence. And especially of the fact that He’s in his jovial best.

You calm your mind, murmur some silent prayers and get ready to begin when

….HAHAHAHAHA…..

your ears burst with a riotous laughter in the background with your mind subsequently going as blank as a white sheet. You are confused at the melodramatic turn of events but gather yourself in quick time. Fending off any sign of incompetence, you try to focus again when voila! The damned thing happens again!

Now you are seriously miffed. You make an irritating face and gulp down some coffee. The caffeine spurs you into momentary enthusiasm and in a desperate attempt, you try to indite again, stringing together beads of a new masterpiece. But by this time, the earlier failures take a toll on you. Whatever you write seems incompetent of your standards. Having so under performed, you are now awfully pissed off, gulping down all the coffee at one go, before opening Google Chrome to check your Facebook notifications.

-x-

Wondering why I told you the story?

Writer’s Block, in itself, is a very amusing thing. You seem to know everything but your brain kinda gets lost with words and construction. And the worst part is, there’s no particular solution to the problem.

As the saying goes, “If a problem stops you from writing, write the problem instead”, here’s my jibe at something that’d troubled authors ( and me ) for ages : The Writer’s Block.

Troubled for the past many days, this is an attempt at overcoming the wretched thing, and with the way the words have arranged themselves, I’m seeing light at the other end!

A ‘novel’ Idea!

How hard do you think it is to write a novel?

Pretty hard, I’d say.

Frankly, I’ve been conceiving this idea of writing a novel for quite some time now but every one of the attempts had dissapoined. Now before you make that I-know-it-all face and think its because of probable lack of  imagination or experience, let me say that I’ve been writing since I was 4. Now don’t look at me like that, it’s true!

So let’s tell you what happened. I am settled comfortably on my couch, my laptop sitting authoritatively on my lap with a MS-Word document open, the plot racing vividly at the back of my mind and the brain knowing exactly what to do. I’m excited and I reach out to type the first letter when

KABOOM!

I’m completely blank.

It has always been a major concern, right from the school days. I’ve always worried about the beginnings, I don’t know why. I have the whole plot up and running in my head but I fumble with the keys wasting hours, only to construct a mediocre beginning. Or maybe it’s my obsession with fantastic beginnings that make ’em feel worthless. I hardly manage two pages and I lose interest. And that is definitely not how I’d like my novel to be written.

I once asked a teacher of mine, a very authoritative man on creative writing, about the problem. He smiled and answered, ” Begin when you have something to say, and finish when you have nothing more. ” Though it sounded pretty mundane at that time and I had a bad time finding sense in those words, a few while in history, everything became crystal.

It’s simple, you see. You don’t have to try and craft out a wonderful piece when you know you’re struggling with it. Just keep it aside and write what flows through the nib. Just because you want the start to be impressive doesn’t mean you have to write it in the beginning itself. You can always come back later.

Sometimes we writers kinda have these bad days when things don’t quite go our way, but what the heck? It’s your book, you can always amend!