Thursday 23 February 2012

What's with a writer's block

Ladies and gentlemen, I am back to where I was. So, after a long time out from this block, I thought of writing about...

Enough of that... I didn't know what to write about. So, I tried to break the ice and start blabbering about something or the other and I used the backspace key on my laptop more than anything else while I started this post. After striking through and through so many times, I decided I would write about that very thing - The Writer's block. Wiki defines it as a 'condition', which can even put an end to one's writing career - in the professional sense that is. Not for an amateur blogger like thou and thee. But I think it is more of a curse than being just a condition.

Consider my last post on this blog, I wrote about some random Margabandhu and tried to correlate his activities with Indian cricket by and large. That thing apparently did not make for a hit as I noticed on my statistics page. There was only one person who commented/liked it on facebook and that person was him. If I had to go by his taste, my writing career would have long been over. I mean, the point is, one shouldn't get an orgasm if someone like him vouches for one's work. So, for a person who understands this fact, technically, the problem is that he starts wondering what needs to change to make a successful product on his blog. I was wondering exactly that and that seemingly was the reason for my prolonged absence from here.

One of my friends suggested me to write on 'How to fall in love and get married in 90 days' as an ode to another friend and his accomplishments. He even gave me a 'title idea' for that post - 'Le Executioner'. But I somehow got the feeling that it wouldn't bring home the bacon. I felt that they might end up being the only persons to appreciate my thoughts on that subject. The other problem was that I have no clue about achieving that kind of a feat in 90 days, so to speak. Some weird guy in my wing had a book while I was at college. It was called 'The Game' and it apparently helped teenaged dudes to pick some threads with nice girls and walk out of pubs like a couple. That book would probably have an answer to that 90 days love and marriage and all that kind of jazz, not my blog. The same set of friends also suggested I write a book instead of wasting time on a blog and I looked at them askance at that suggestion. I don't need to elaborate. That suggestion was nothing more than just 'stupid'.

With so many suggestions and ideas, both from external sources and internal, the only good was that I came to realize one real fact viz.The mind and the heart belong to two different sexes. The mind is a testosterone based thinker and the heart is a lot like those pinkish fetishes. In the process of contemplating, I thought I should write about cricket, especially about that internal unrest in Team India's dressing room. The mind suggested that topic of course, if you didn't get that part clear. The heart pounced at that suggestion and said, "Don't be a loser, get a life. Write something more romantic.". See? I said the heart belonged to the female sex. Then I thought of writing about passion, life, love and all those abstract things. This time, the guy retorted in an even bitter tone. He said, I would look like a fool if I write something so cinematic. That seemed sensible too. Especially with the kind of readers I have. It would easily become a topic for them to mock at me in public. So, I decided against that one too. Politics Economics, Money, Career, Work, Football etc. said HIM...... Pets, Fashion, Nature, Trees, Oceans, Flowers et al. came from HER. But I found none really meaningful.

I asked those two friends of mine for some more ideas. And one of them told me to write about 'why women are not funny'. His argument was that, those kind of topics could possibly bring a lot more female attention to this blog which is something that is lacking as of today. But I begged to differ. That kid of writing would probably bring a lot of scorn to me and my chauvinistic ideas. I prefer to play it safe and say that women are actually very funny and move on.

Another idea was to write about smoking and drinking as stimulants for a writer and his creativity as is talked about  here. But I felt, I should do some more research to write about something of that sort, especially since I am a complete teetotaler as you guys know.

So yea, due to a lack of ideas, I ended up taking a long vacation from writing, until I figured I could write about that block itself. I guess I did get past that block in the end because as I scroll up, I think I've written enough for a post. More than 4 paragraphs it appears. So, Wiki could have actually got it right. It is probably just a condition.

If you are here,

Thanks for getting this far, You have played a part in removing my writer's block. Thank you!

3 comments:

Arjun said...

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117998/

Salman Rushdie said...

Thank You! Pradeep, That's one ingenious solution to get rid of a Writer's Block. Now, tell me how to deal with the practice of 'blocking writers'?

Cheers,
Salman

Unknown said...

@Salman : You could do that by choosing to stay away from their spaces! :-P