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...)