A few years back, I attended a writing workshop and it boggled my mind that post my first novel, am actually supposed to say something worthwhile to writers who want to be published. Most of time, it is an awkward exercise to say something meaningful because many people believe that a byline or a published book means that you have in some measure, made it. I don’t think so.
I am a struggler still because even though I have bylines stretching across 17 years, I still have to work for a living and deal with the realities of the publishing world where the hype around a book matters more than the book. So to all those who send messages like,”I think I can write a book too, how should I go about it?” The honest answer is, “I don’t know!” For a start, just start writing. Don’t wait. As someone who once handled a lot of mail from people who think, a journalist or an editor has a personal grudge against them if they don’t take their stuff, let me say this. It doesn’t really matter how many bylines you have or how good you are, people will say ‘NO.’ I still hear it and try not to take it personally. And really, writing is not about being visible to the world but about making the invisible within, visible. Writing is not something you do to show others or to prove anything, to begin with. You write because words find you or you find them and then something emerges from that. And then you take it out in the world and hope it will be read.
There are writers who write for every contest, show up for every publishing break, count their bylines (“200 articles! I have made a double century!” I kid you not, I have actually heard these words spoken) and are members of every writers’ group known and unknown. There are novelists who write their books to fit in a certain, currently `hot’ genre. Great and good for them. Maybe, writing really can be done in this manner too. Maybe, it is important to write with a goal or an agenda in mind. But if you cannot do this, it is okay.
Just because you are not being published, does not mean that you are not a writer. A writer can be read only if she/he writes so don’t stop writing. Listen to the call of a story, a poem, a thought, an idea. Don’t muzzle it just because it seems unlikely to find a publisher or a byline. The fact that an idea has chosen you means that you have to stand up and claim it and own it and nourish it till it comes alive and is wiggling in your arms, impatient to be released in the world.
Write. Not because it will give you something to hold over the heads of others who can’t. But because, you can’t escape a story and it can’t escape you. Keep the process pure. Beyond the corruption of hard sell and exalted ego. Because writers are mediums or channels for a thought that comes from some place beyond. If you get out of the rut of proving to the world that you are a writer, you will really start to enjoy the process of writing.
It will fill the crevices in your life and heal your hurts like nothing else can. It will connect you to people who don’t know you but know your writing. It will build a sense of kinship and an extended family far more precious and enriching than anything you can imagine. Every thing you write has a destiny and I believe that. Every book finds its readers. And every story finds its narrator. And that narrator could be you so before spending yourself on the cackledom of publishing, on the methods of selling and projecting and competing, pause for a moment. And listen to the story. The story that is waiting for you to grow still so that it can grow within you.
Reema Moudgil is the author of Perfect Eight (http://www.flipkart.com/b/books/perfect-eight-reema-moudgil-book-9380032870?affid=unboxedwri
Rulaa diya…
truly touched my core…great article!
Thanks Reema for posting this great great article…it is truly inspiring for budding writers like me…pls keep writing such great stuff..bcz that keeps the flicker of hope alive in ppl like me…
Today I want to say a big thanks to Reema- Unboxed writers. Reema, you believed in me and gave me a chance to showcase my work. Thanks to you i have just realized a long time dream of writing on travel/food. TLF has just hired me as a permanent contributor to their magazine. God Bless You and hope we create more ripples:)
Also, a big Thank you to my editor Natascha Shah for giving me this wonderful opportunity. God Bless You too.
“Write. Not because it will give you something to hold over the heads of others who can’t. But because, you can’t escape a story and it can’t escape you.”
How much I loved it! Keep writing.
“The story that is waiting for you to grow still so that it can grow within you”….Inspiring! This increases my urge; to simply write…watevr I feel like widout thinking will it b published or not…:D
“Kitaab na ban payein jo
wo tamaam khayalaat..
lawaris se kyun hote hain..
kisi book shelf ki dhool me rache bagair
sab alfaaz najayaz se kyun hote hain…”
I wrote this when I felt that I need to get published to prove to the world that I can write too,,but when I read something like this article..my faith is strengthened that my words are safe within the confines of the loose sheets and diaries, where I preserve them till date..published or not.
I am pretty much stalking your blog here and going through your posts for reasons I cannot really fathom. I review brought me here, and now I am hooked. I think you have a marvellous way with words, but I think a lot of people would have told you that. I just want to let you know that your writing connects on a level I cannot explain. But it draws me back, again and again. I don’t know if this comment is of any significance, but I want to thank you for sharing what you share with the world through this blog. Cheers! And keep writing!
P.S. “The Perfect Eight” is available on flipkart, you say? I’ll head there straight away!
thanks everyone for the kind comments..and Tanisha, thanks for reading and sharing your thoughts..there are times I wonder too at the point of it all and then a message like this gives hope that nothing goes waste..if you can’t find my book online..do let me know..will send you a copy, cheers
Dear Reema, Many thanks to you for writing this piece, which is invigorating. I should share the kind of change that I have been going through with respect to writing. Six years ago, when I began to blog, I hardly had any readers. I used to force my friends to read and comment on my blogs. For being over-enthusiastic, an acquaintance chose to quell my spirits with his harsh feedback. I quit writing for a year. Then, for God-know-why, I resumed writing and kept writing. I quit six years of corporate career and began to work as a trainee journalist in a popular daily. I was back to square one. While almost everybody stood by my decision, I kept questioning myself, if I made the best decision of losing a well-established career. I knew then that I had to sacrifice it to choose what I loved doing, which was writing. It’s been around 1.5 years, since I began to work in a newspaper. I write almost everyday and manage to update my blogs too. These days I don’t compare my style of writing with anybody else for I compare it against my own works that were created a few years ago. I am contented as long as I have bettered the person, who I was yesterday. And in the process, I realised that I’m writing for myself. I’m writing to give life to those compelling ideas that haunt me. While the virtual world continues to heap praises and massage my ego, deep down my heart, I reckon that writing is an intimate relationship that I have established with myself – to be blissfully lonely. Thank you for helping me cement my belief, Reema. I really appreciate. Love, Deepika