MY TOOL KIT

An artist’s tools are the most precious and the most important thing in the whole wide world for her/him. I know of so many home cooks who like to cut and chop with their favourite knives; the much acclaimed chefs are known to travel with their own set of knives, custom-made and heavily insured. Similarly, pen, paper, and the suitable place are a writer’s prerequisite for expressing her/his thoughts and ideas.

I too, am partial to my pens and notebooks, and my den. I have a penchant to write with fountain pens. I developed a taste for them when I was as young as 12. I picked it from my mother’s side of the family and passed it on to my children. Although, I usually write all my prose, academic, journalistic, and other forms of writing on my laptop, yet my poetry always takes form on a paper first. It is then that I use my fountain pens. I do not hesitate to use my pens with a flourish during busy meetings and quick note-taking. In fact, I find writing with a fountain pen or a pencil very therapeutic.

I was introduced to handwriting mediation and writing affirmations by a psychic healer when I was overcoming my depression. It is since then that writing in a particular way with a fountain pen or a pencil, has soothed me and calmed my nerves.

I have an exquisite and an ever-growing collection of fountain-pens; most of them are gifts, from my husband who has taken after me only in this aspect. After I completed my masters in creative writing, a long cherished dream, I gifted myself a limited edition Ted Baker pen (refer to the picture). Quite an expense, but I always see such expenses as investment. I have been complimented for the pen many a times, and many have been drawn to writing with a fountain pen after interacting with this beauty. I am happy about this effect, writing with hand, taking time to form our thoughts and then the effort to write them down in a neat and beautiful hand on a pristine sheet, without the expectation of instant gratification, are virtues that we are losing touch with in our fast-paced times. I like to encourage writing with hand whenever and wherever I can.

In the same vein, I have shared a video about my tool-kit or my pouch in which I carry my essentials for writing. I talk about why everything that is there in the pouch, is there, and how I use it. I have suggestions for putting to use a few other pieces of stationery too.

I hope you enjoy the video. Tell me about your ‘tool-kit’ and any eccentricities whatsoever, attached to it and its usage.

READY TO WRITE - II

Continued from READY TO WRITE - I  

It so happened around this time that people around me began gifting me beautiful notebooks. They came in all shapes, sizes, colours and patterns. So I carry a small pouch of different fountain pens (because I have an ink pen fetish) and pencils in my handbag along with two different notebooks. I have a few notebooks to write on my office table, on my bedside table, in my laptop bag, in my handbag, and a few spare ones in my cupboards in my bedroom and my office. There was a time when books and notebooks would tumble out of my almirahs at home!

Another practice that I have found handy is recording my thoughts. I often travel by road to different cities for work. I am usually alone during such sojourns, and this allows for a lot of ruminating and enough of thinking. I receive many creative expressions and ideas on these trips. So, I prefer to record them in my mobile phone as audio clips with date and time. It is a little cumbersome to write in a moving vehicle, especially the one on a bumpy ride. Before I end my day, I remember to note it down in one of my notebooks.

Also, I try not to use more than three notebooks at a time. It makes my work easier to locate a particular phrase or expression. One can even write into a device directly, but for me, it has posed two specific problems. Firstly, I cannot carry a decent sized device around with me at all times and to all places. Secondly, I feel that the cold blue screen saps me of all feelings and emotions. My thoughts become sterile immediately and so the flow that has just commenced, comes to an abrupt halt. This generates feelings of frustration, very much in opposition to relief emerging out of writing.

So, my writer friends carry a notebook and pen always with you. You never know when divine inspiration visits you. Also remember that you are allowed to retract from the trappings of an ordinary life to daydream and note your precious and elusive words.

READY TO WRITE - I

For a very long time, I felt that writers and other artists made unnecessary hullabaloo about their states of being inspired. I felt that they used receiving inspiration as an excuse to escape tricky situations of ordinary life, to retract into their cocoons or dens, and to indulge in their personal ‘creative’ whims.

But, I was proven wrong. It was around the time I started writing my first novel. I was then the mother to two very young children, who demanded my constant attention and supervision. However, I had to write and there was no escaping this overwhelming urge within me. I had not yet begun working as a trainer and a facilitator, and I was a stay-at-home-mother. So, most of my time was spent in the household chores. I was secretly wishing to buy a laptop to fulfill my need to write, and the opportune moment when I happened to receive the gift of lump-sum money, I treated as a sign from the heavens above.

But again, there was a glitch. I could write when I was alone or when I was able to take out time to write. However, the story kept swimming around in my mind the whole day. And there were moments when just the right expression to convey the exact sense popped up in my mindscape. Alas! I had no laptop or pen and paper with me at that very moment, to save the words.

A few years later, when my children were fairly independent and I did as I pleased with my time (which I still do), I began writing my second novel. I had begun working by this time, and I was keeping very busy too. Hence, again my time was not my own at all times. I again faced the issue with catching the words as they came to me. My mentor Prof Lal, once even hinted at catching the thoughts in the now, as they rarely returned in the later. Still, I could not find my way around this obstacle.

A few more years later, as I was pursuing my masters, my professor Dr Claire Harman whom I hold in high regard, shattered my misconception of using sudden inspiration as an escape route from normal living. She showed all of us eager writers, a copy of Thomas Hardy’s Poetical Matter Notebook.  So, the truth came out. Every creative person does actually live in a world of her/his own, and she/he has the right to retire to this personal sanctuary and collect the divine download as it happens into her/his system.

I have thence, begun to treat my thoughts and words more reverently. I too carry a notebook at all times now. In fact, I love the whole act of transferring the thought and the expression to the paper, enjoying myself thoroughly, reveling in the moment. I feel that writing is therapy and when one is stealing moments from a hurried and harried day to pen down thoughts of a faraway land, the catharsis is immediate, efficacious, and long lasting.

(To be continued...)

WRITING GIBBERISH

As a writer and a facilitator, I come across many stumbling blocks to writing. Today, I shall talk about one of such hesitations to write.

Just the other day, a student of mine who happens to be an exceptional writer and an intelligent voracious reader, said to me that the whole day thoughts, phrases, ideas, and verses kept coming to him. But he found them 'not good enough' to pen down and compose a poem. 'Please help!'he said.

I immediately corrected him. I asked him to write down these random phrases in his notebook. All my students are advised to carry a notebook at all times. I have a lovely learned soul as a student who has a notebook fetish; more on her in another blog. Life is teaching us, demonstrating profound truths for our knowledge at all times, and the least we can do is take notes. 

Also, words have a life of their own and a mind of their own. They should be respected. So, when they come to us, we must write them down or else they escape from our grasp, buried somewhere in our subconscious only to be retrieved much later than the opportune time. So write people! Write as soon as a thought comes to you, etch it in our psyche, and then play with it; whole day long or for a lifetime.

Another important practice is not to judge our composition or work, and for that matter anybody's work. And to assign it the quality of being 'good', ''good enough, or 'not good enough', even before the whole composition has taken shape and form, is jumping to uncalled for conclusions. Simple words are powerful too. "Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication", said Leonardo da Vinci. So do not hesitate to write your random thoughts.

Furthermore, writing is a skill that needs practice. The more regular our practice, the better our skill. So writing at least 500 words everyday, even of gibberish is essential for writers. Who knows, this is the chaff that needs to be peeled away before the golden grain can shine through. Thus, it is all the more important for you to write everyday, even that which you think is 'not good enough'. 

Additionally, one can return to these ramblings at a later stage, with heightened inspiration, to tackle the gibberish and compose a piece of scintillating prose or verse. Energy can neither be created nor destroyed, so is a composition which is the release of energy. 

It is for this reason that writing, creative writing, and writing gibberish are important tools of therapy through creative writing.

At our centre 'Philyra Training and Consultancy' where we hold workshops for creative writing and personality management through creative writing, we have a host of exercises for evoking gibberish from writers, both aspiring and established, at the beginning of each session. We have been surprised many times to find that our gibberish has made sense at a later time, that our gibberish has shown up in our writing after many days or weeks.

So write on! Even if it seems gibberish.