Skip to main content

Writer's Block- A Moment of Self-Doubt

I almost gave up writing for good seven to eight years. A period during which I wrote nothing but office mails and minutes of meetings and contracts and such things, dreary and dull, devoid of any beauty or romance.

I would write in my mind, sentences getting written and erased in my mind. I quit smoking right at the turn of the century and the glamor of smoke forming poetry in the air to be scribbled with urgency was lost.

So I did not write, until couple of years back a sense of loss, a scary thought of dying with all my thoughts faced me. Something told me I had it in me. It used to be fun. It used to be exceptionally fun  in good old, pre-computer days when I would write on a paper with my pen. I felt that I was living half my life, with a half a me, the half which carried the truer sense of me, stifled and locked inside me. I would be loud, obvious, and laugh with the crowd which obliterated and belittled the intensity of thought. I laughed with a voice which scared me at nights and which did not reach my eyes.

I eventually dug deeper and convinced myself that I need to write. I convinced myself that I hold within my being a thought which is sacred, even more scared then the human life itself which carries me through.
 
But then writing is always easy. You know how to write and you can go ahead,erect a mast and proclaim yourself as a writer. Friends were kind and they smiled at the juvenile attempt to what I considered as a journey to reclaim myself. So came a book and the collection of my poems, a short story and this blog.
 
But then this whole exercise is so painfully fraught with self-doubt and dilemma. Just because every human being knows how to speak, does it qualify us to be a speaker. Is not the same true about writing? Can I self-endorse myself as a writer, when all I am doing is writing just as a human being speaks?
 
I write and search my answers through my writing. I am surrounded by questions and writing help me dive deep to search for the answers. But then, I am stung by attacks, which almost imply that I write not because I have in me to be a writer, but to satisfy my vanity. It hurts and badgers my own idea about myself. I try writing as secretly as I could and indulge into reading as slyly as I could without attracting any attention, in the middle of buying grocery, raising the kid and working the day-job. The mockery raises its level and after a while you almost start believing in it. The self-doubt creeps and after a tiring and extracting work day, you sit down to write in silence. The exercise of writing becomes almost adulterous, almost as scandalous and not half as entertaining.
 
And then you look at your own writing with the eyes of a murderous killer, you want to chop the words to alphabet and you do not like what you have written a bit. And you want to be dead with your dead writing, for something speaks in your mind- there is no dilemma that death can not address. You question whether you have a writer in you or are you merely an arranger of words, akin to a kid playing with building block. But is there no grace, no dignity in a kid playing with a building block? What about the grace of creation, the dignity of exploration, which is underlying in the kid's activity. My writing seems worse, and when fraught with severe self-doubt, when I write regarding the poverty of my feminished work, people construe it to be modesty. It isn't, it is the worth of my work on my own self-depriciating scale. I truly do not know if my writing is worthy enough to be sustained and nourished.
 
I mostly write to find answers. But some times I write, only to view the questions more vividly. This is one such post. It has no answer for me. It is only my hard-headed desperation, intending to look at a dangerously mocking question in its eyes, eyeball to eyeball confrontation as they say in military parlance. I have no answers, but I have never been a man for easy answers., easy answers also never liked me much, they never would come to me. Should I continue to write and expose my buffoonery to the world at large or should I keep my own mediocrity carefully under the wraps and keep people guessing? Do I really have in it me to be a writer, or it is mere pretense?
 
If I do not have in me a writer, why as the day draws to close, without a good reading or satisfying writing, my self resembles a haunted house? Is it true that I neither have talent, perseverance nor the discipline to be a writer? I shout out in the valley and the valley throws back the questions at me with increased amplitude and amplified vengeance. Self-doubt clouds the conscious, but I know one thing, why do I feel happier and liberated when I write something good, even if the act within it carries a sense of criminality? Answers, anyone? I do have a feeling that if I could bring about a sense of ritualistic discipline about my writing, answers would come. But I do not know at this moment, if the answer lies in there. I am in the middle of all bad things, Mid-life, mid-career crisis, and a severe writer block. I find a reflection of my confusion and desperate state in George Orwell when he writes," Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand". It pleases me to be brutal with myself, which in itself is quit masochistic and still write, thus this post. I seemingly have not a way out. In the middle of this, my book which is still struggling to get past the chapter-3 languishes in a long wait. It has come to me to be written, but am I the right person to write it?

Comments

Jo Robinson said…
I’ve nominated you for The Versatile Blogger Award. If you’d like to accept, please go here:
http://africolonialstories.wordpress.com/2013/05/05/the-versatile-blogger-award/
Unknown said…
Nice to hear that you quit smoking. Quit smoking is very much necessary if you want to remain happy in life. I also quit smoking with the help of electronic cigarettes. Electronic cigarettes do not contain tobacco and any other harmful products. So, you can use it in any place as it does not produce smoke as well. Many companies offer you best4ecigs-free e cigarette starter kit for trial. You can get help from that.
Saket Suryesh said…
Thanks John for the visit and comment..
Anonymous said…
Sweet blog! I found it while surfing around on Yahoo News.
Do you have any tips on how to get listed in Yahoo News?
I've been trying for a while but I never seem to get
there! Many thanks

my blog post - ecigarettes
Saket Suryesh said…
Hi thanks for the visit and comment. I have no clue how it landed on Yahoo news.
Anonymous said…
I visit each day some blogs and blogs to read articles or reviews,
but this blog presents feature based articles.



My weblog muscle building supplements
Anonymous said…
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

Popular posts from this blog

कायस्थ- इतिहास एवं वर्तमान परिपेक्ष्य

सत्यम , दानम , क्षमा शीलमानृशंस्य तपो घृणा। दृश्यंते यत्र नागेंद्र स ब्राह्मण इति स्मृतः।। ( हे सर्पराज , जिसमें सत्य , दानशीलता , क्षमा , क्रूरतारहित भाव , तप एवं संवरण , एवं संवेदना हो , वह मनुष्य को ही ब्राह्मण मानना चाहिए। ) शुद्रे तु यद् भवेल्लक्षम द्विजे तच्च न विद्दयते। न वै शूद्रों भवेच्छुद्रो ब्रह्मणो न च ब्राह्मण : ।। ( यदि शूद्र में यह गुण हैं ( सत्य , दान , अक्रोध , अहिंसा , तप , संवरण एवं संवेदना ) और ब्राह्मण में यह गुण परिलक्षित ना हों तो वह शूद्र शूद्र नहीं , ब्राह्मण है ; और वह ब्राह्मण ब्राह्मण नहीं है। )  - युधिष्ठिर - नहुष संवाद , अजगर कांड , महाभारत , वन पर्व   वर्तमान परिपेक्ष्य में जिसे जाति कहा जाता है , वह वर्ण व्यवस्था का विकृत रूप है। सनातन धर्म का वर्ण जहाँ समाज को व्यवसाय एवं क्षमता के अनुरूप व्यवस्थित करने का प्रयास था और कर्म पर आधारित था , जाति उसी व्यवस्था का विघटित रूप बन कर जन्मगत व्यवस्था बन गई। जाति या कास्ट पुर्तगाल

Pathaan and Polarisation- Movie Review

Many have not seen Pathan, I have. I have a huge tolerance towards stupid movies and I love to watch all sort of movies. What has bothered me most about Pathaan is that in terms of content and characterisation, it is absolutely shoddy, much worse than much lampooned RaOne AND there is no review which openly tells you about it.  Most reviewers have reviewed the movie like a teenager, gushing over VFX generated body of ShahRukh Khan. This reminds me of my schoolmates bunking classes to watch tomato-sauce-laced movies of Ramsey brothers, gushing over semi-nude voluptuous actresses in the late 80s. Only difference being that those were school kids in class XII, with raging hormones and a stupefied intellect when a world around them was fast changing. Here we have middle-aged professional movie reviewers guiding people to their way in or out of Movie theatres. Their primary argument in favour of the movie is nothing but beefed up Shahrukh Khan and the gap between his earlier movie and this

बाल विवाह - हिंदू इतिहास और सत्य

  इतिहास का लेखन उसकी विसंगतियों की अनुक्रमिका नहीं वरन उसके समाज के आम रूप से स्वीकृत मान्यताओं एवं उस समाज के जननायकों द्वारा स्थापित मानदंडों के आधार पर होना चाहिए। परंतु जब लेखनी उन हाथों में हो जिनका मंतव्य शोध नहीं एक समाज को लज्जित करना भर हो तो समस्या गहन हो जाती है। जब प्रबुद्ध लोग कलम उठाते हैं और इस उद्देश्य के साथ उठाते हैं कि अप्रासंगिक एवं सदर्भहीन तथ्यों के माध्यम से समाज की वर्ग विभाजक रेखाओं को पुष्ट कर सकें तो हमारा कर्तव्य होता है कि हम सत्य को संदर्भ दें और अपने इतिहास के भले बुरे पक्षों को निर्विकार भाव से जाँचें।   बीते सप्ताह बाल विवाह को लेकर विदेशी सभ्यता में उठे प्रश्नों को भारत की सभ्यता पर प्रक्षेपित करके और उसकी स्वीकार्यता स्थापित करने पर बड़ी चर्चा रही। इस संदर्भ में   श्री ए एल बाशम से ले कर राजा राम मोहन रॉय तक चर्चा चली। बाशम की पुस्तक द वंडर दैट वाज इंडिया - को उद्धृत कर ले कहा गया कि हिं