Edited by Ajitesh Vishwanath
Truth be told, I have been staring at the vaste whiteness of my Google Doc, trying to synchronize my eye blinking with the blinking of the cursor, because my thoughts refuse to converge into a coherent piece. They wish to run about, like children at a wedding. I want to write about how I have been shattered by the poems of Ocean Vuong but I also want to talk about the looming exam season (which I have ignored by taking refuge in a fast-paced novel). I do not know what to do but I have tried it all. Consuming caffeine sent me into a frenzy of reading up conspiracy theories under the pretext of article research and taking a walk led me to abandon the work altogether. So much so that I then procrastinated writing the piece till the last few hours of the deadline. And yet again, I faced the eternally persistent question: “ Why do I do this to myself?” I would attempt at taking a guess if it was not for the ticking clock and the overwhelming burden of work.
By sheer luck and a little bit of self-talk, I will ultimately manage to put words down to paper. In all likelihood, It will be either an extensive description or a terribly tiny tale. Either way, I will go forward and delete everything during the re-read, only to retain 5 words that can be considered similar only if the themes are decided by New York Time’s Connections. Yet, I will be convinced that these form the entire basis of what I am trying to say. This process, much like my experiments in the lab, will have multiple replicates until a satisfactory result is obtained, or in higher probability, the deadline is awfully close.
Finally a workable piece will emerge, like a phoenix from the ashes of an overused thesaurus. I will read it aloud with the sole motto of “we listen and we judge” and by the last paragraph I will realise that I do not like my chain of thought. As though, it has wrapped itself around my hands, restraining me from writing what I truly want.
This is where I will seek help beyond my capacities and discuss my article with a friend. As a miraculous event, this friend that I have witnessed doing truly questionable things( putting ketchup in Maggi) will come up with an idea so fantastic, it will save my entire piece. On very rare occasions, my brain will also be able to do so, and it will feel like the sun came out. Nonetheless, like the ending of every tale, the pen will become the sword and slay the nasty writer’s block. Until…my next submission comes up. And the frustration, joy and relief will repeat, in perpetual motion, like a hamster on a wheel.
With each submission however, I learn. Writing, I have come to realise, takes a lot of patience and determination. It also takes a lot of acceptance that we may not love what we write, it may not be anywhere close to perfect, but it will be worthwhile. I think that is the point of it all is it not? I would rather have words on paper that perhaps make sense just to me, than to have them forming a lump in my throat, crushed under everything I wanted to shout out to the world but did not. And then there’s always the question of hope, that in all the errors I make, some words might escape and turn into some extraordinary writing. Something that trickles down to people and becomes so much larger than myself. And perhaps then, the process will make a lot more sense.