Story Scientist

Lord knows I’m an irregular writer, but I know I’m a regular poet.

With the all-encompassing CBSE 10th board examinations looming large over all our heads, there’s scarcely ever room for….well, anything else. Get away from the desk and you’re too hell-bent on squeezing in netflix time to write something. And worst of all, spending day after day with textbooks and a syllabus that sucks your soul, you start to lose your spark. That fascination with every little tick in the world and the itch to write about it disappears. Does that mean we’re bad writers? Maybe. Does that mean we can never be good writers? I don’t think so.

How do I know that? Well, take me for example! Here I am, putting words on a page after so long that I thought I’d lost my voice. But I know I haven’t. I’m still full of interesting things to pour out on paper, or on a word document, and as is everyone. It just takes a little bit of life support.

If I google images of life-support, all I see are ICU photos. But that’s not what I mean. I’m talking about the little practices that can be incorporated into the busiest, most boring and unmotivated lives to keep the dying writer alive until it’s time to let the words out. I’m not even talking about daily word counts. I’m talking about tiny rituals that translate to tiny ounces of discipline. And if like me, you’re not disciplined, baby steps are the best way to learn.

1. Find your ‘tiny ounce’.

For me it’s poetry. Remember, the goal here isn’t to keep your prose sharp or grammar and sentence-structure intact. Those things can be revised at any time. We’re trying to preserve our spark, our ethos, our passion. That, in my book, is a lot harder to recover, once lost. So I like to maintain a night-time diary. I take approximately 20 minutes to pen down one rough poem. Any revisions and edits that need to be made can be left for later. If I have only 20 minutes at night, I’ll put down something and go to bed knowing that I managed to weave something beautiful before the day ended. For someone else this could be a couplet, a diary entry, a piece of dialogue, even a short paragraph. If it’s words, and if it’s from the heart, it counts.

2. Be an opportunist

You know how the veteran authors avoid writer’s block? They keep their lists. The second something on the street, in the kitchen, or in the bathroom passes their mind or catches their eye, it’s dumped into a disorderly and maniacal list. I keep mine on whatsapp. Even if it’s a commercial on tv that gets me thinking about satirical story ideas, I’ll pause the television and text it to myself. That list keeps getting longer, and longer, and very rarely is it opened to actually pick something up rather than put something in. But it’s the practice that counts, because by doing this we’re keeping the most important part of being a writer intact within us: observation.

3. Be nice to yourself

This is my personal favorite. I don’t write everyday, not by a long shot. But on the days I don’t, writing still crosses my mind. Every day I live has a point. That point could be work, panic-work, or doing nothing just for the sake of it. So I decide to trust the process and let myself be a little choppy with the poems. Does this make me indisciplined? Probably. Am I willing to let that happen according to my current circumstance? Yes, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

I know, I know. We all take our writing seriously. We want it to make us famous and rich. But guess what? In the pursuit of success, lots of things end up taking a backseat for a while. And thats temporary. Practices like these ensure that it stays temporary. The main goal is to keep the writer alive, even when everything points in the other direction. So I keep faith in the writer in me, and I check in on her all the time.

How’s that for beating procrastination?