I’m a writer. Not a bestselling, charts-topping one, not yet. But there are things I have seen, emotions that rage through me, there are questions with no answers that don’t let me sleep; they scuttle around like headless Medusas until they find a place of their own on a blank page. Those wicked things do not even ask for their answers to be known. I’ve been wise, I’ve been immature; I’ve let go of things that mattered most to me and pushed myself against the wall in the name of standing up.
I have lost more than I thought I would, I haven’t had a place to hide. I face myself each day and sometimes, I see a new stranger. And in time, you read my work and you wonder what could’ve possibly inspired me. I’m a writer: I crystallize shards of my own experience and melt them all together in one big china pot… sure, the names are different and sometimes they have better cell phones and have no flatulence issues.
My written word derives itself from my life, from all that I have been, from what I continue to see and comprehend.
Every other dolt’s a writer?
You skim through those paragraphs, flitting from word to full stop, wondering WHY anyone would write poems that rhyme and stories that don’t. Juvenile plots, random spell errors, that predictable course of acceptance and irony… you don’t get it, do you?
You stroke your ego and think that maybe… you’re better. Or wonder what creativity has come down to for people. You can quote all the fancy authors and thinkers you find on Google, there’s none that could explain this nosedive in common creative sense.
You’re really that simple, aren’t you?
The next time you read a work of fiction, remind yourself that somewhere, one scene or maybe a chapter or a book is a secret marriage of someone’s truth with another world in another ‘verse. A story, howsoever stunted, is an individual attempt to set free what was set in motion, to release the design. A verse, howsoever far-fetched, is a testimonial to the patterns that choose us, and the one ones we choose to keep.
Not everyone you meet or will read about will be half as adept with words as you. But I’m a writer, and keep this in mind, may your own conceit not trump you.
Not bestselling. Not yet.
What is a headless Medusa exactly and what is her MO?
A headless Medusa is one with her head clean off her shoulders.
Define MO, padawan.
Happy New Year Ritika! Your post reminds me of my own aspirations when I was at art college. A keen reader, my mind was blown by Dostoyevsky, Steinbeck and many, many others.
Suspension of disbelief thrilled me, for I had experienced it as a child reading Enid Blyton’s Secret Seven and Famous Five beneath the blankets. Natuarally, I didn’t know it as suspension of disbelief back then, but loved mind-wandering the worlds Blyton created, and longed to be able to do it myself.
Of course, in the days before PC´s we all had to use quills and vellum. Well, um, not quite. Yet,, in my case, my reading led me to think I didn´t have the experience of life most great writers possessed when I was a teenager. Seeing myself as young, naive and raw inside, I felt I’d have to get out in the world first. How I envied young, great writers, who seem able to write well as soon as their tiny fingers could grasp a crayon.
Anyway, you might be interested to know I’ve dug out a draft of a novel from the deepest recesses of my hard drive. It’s something I began more than ten years ago. The first draft is basically complete. I thought I might as well edit it in the public eye, otherwise it might never see the light of day. So I have set up a new blog solely for that task. You can click on the link to see the first instalment of Pedersen’s Last Dream, if you feel the urge.
pedersenslastdream.wordpress.com
Happy new year to you too, Bryan!
This should probably be embarassing but I read Enid Blyton right till the sixth grade; she never failed to enchant me. Of life experiences, yes.
Pedersen’s Last Dream and interested? Yes! Already reading it. We’re in the same boat I guess; I have been sitting pretty on a couple of thoughts and no amount of chiding would get me to publish them. But then doing things is the only way way of doing them. Sometimes, fear of my post not being perfect enough is all it takes to stall progress.
So to the new venture, bravo!
Books. Such wonderful beings.