Earlier this year, I wrote a blog post and for the first time which made me feel, "Yes, I've changed". There were emotions woven in the sweater I wore on the 31st night. I sat at a nearby Udupi in Bengaluru sipping tea and reading Helen Macdonald's "H is for Hawk". It was around 22:30 PM when my hands started itching for a post I was trying to write from a month.
I folded the book, slid it in my hoodie's pocket and started walking towards my apartment in hurry. I sat on the desk and started typing. 15-20 minutes later, I was done with the bleeding through words. I wrote the insecurity, fear, regret, raw philosophies and everything I could think of in those 15-20 minutes of pure instinct driven thought process. I published the blog post and went to sleep.
As a person, I've done a lot of blood shed in the last 1 year through the words I wrote. I get a lot of comments on my essays related to difficulty in understanding my words. Oftentimes, people say, "it's hard to comprehend it". And, I do get that because at a point every thing I wrote was hard for myself to comprehend.
A lot of people think writing is hard. I agree, writing is very damn hard, but only when you are ignoring all the clutters and chaos you have going on internally or around you. Writing honest things is as hard as fooling yourself when you know what hot waters you are in. It's similar in programming, you can write code because you have the clear imagination of what a particular method or function call should be doing. Once in the office Rushabh told me that, "Honesty makes people interested in you, and to be interesting you have to be honest". By becoming vulnerable, you are often showing your scars to everyone around you. But, the question is, "Are they really interested in seeing your scars ?".
Personally, I rely a lot on instinct, it's a dependency without which I can't even write a single sentence. Haruki Murakami took almost a decade long pause while he was writing "The city, and it's Uncertain walls". It took Gerard Way around 9 months to complete poems for their Debut album "The Black Parade" and there are tons of other examples. In moments like these, words are just callings from some realm of energy inside you. For me, it's immense struggle when I'm not able to comprehend what mischief my mind is commanding me to do. But, it's breeze when the match of instinct catches fire as soon as it was incinerated.
It's not writing, when you are not able to observe your thoughts. You cannot "try" writing and in general one should not do anything if they have to "try". I've always believed the ones who use the word "try" are just trying to buy themselves time. If you have to "try", then that thing is just not for you.
Writing is magic, you will not even know when the magic happened and you have 100 clear words in front of you on the page. As humans, we are involved in every kind of emotion through out life including angst, agony, happiness, sorrow, witty and everything you can think of. Maybe, you can do some mischief with yourself, your mind and hide your thoughts behind a huge wall of absurdity. Or, write it raw if you're not afraid of being a Cog in the Murder Machine. It's completely fine to be a liar in your writing, a lot of good writers and poets out there are just a bunch of scumbag liars.
It's not "writing", it's clear and concise observation of chaos, imagination, and memories. Often, words just accompany emotions, imagination and your thoughts on the glory wheel. It's the writing which flows when you know what has been happening with you and within your surroundings. It's a state when you have the ability to be brutal to your own reality. For example, I lost hang of when I started and completed this essay.
Respect and admire details. It is important to actualize thoughts into reality to understand the details. Details are this fun element in the process which when done right are mouthful of caviars to the reader. But, if over done they have the ability to scare the shit out of the readers. For me, it depends upon what my mind wants, I write it very detailed when I want the energy from my mind to be transferred accurately.
If you think you are mad, don't shout, yell or cry about it. Just convert your madness into writing or any form of art. Screams will only be heard by the 4 walls, art could end up being cherished through centuries. We would've never been able to see "The Scream", if Edward Munch did not decide to represent anxiety. We would have never been able to get our hands on "The Metamorphosis", if Kafka just kept on crying in his bedroom every day after work.
You are the only one of your kind, looks and thoughts. It's your madness, grammar, punctuation and spelling mistakes which makes it "your" writing. Ask people to just not read it, if they feel it's bad, lacks taste or is poorly written. Don't let the school, college, education, people or any kind of now-formed artificial system touch the growing babygirl, unless you're all ready to sacrifice yourself for it.
Lastly, "writing" your thoughts does not need practice. All it requires is honesty.
