Why I write and how I write.

A few months ago I completed a Diploma in Creative Writing from a renowned institute in my home town in India. When I joined the course last year, a number of people who are regular readers of my blog told me I did not really need a 'qualification' to write. But I believe there is always scope for improvement and learning and I toiled on with the assignments and the exams that were a part and parcel of the course. 

One of the assignments for the course asked us to detail why we write and how we write. In other words it asked us to define what compels us to put down words and what the whole process is like for us. My three year old blog, which I had started for consumption by my immediate family only, completed ten thousand page views today with readers spanning remote corners of the globe! Thank you all! So here is a peek into my mind and my writing triggers...

I began writing as an eight year old, way back when I was in third grade, in school. No one told me to do it, no one forced me to do it but I still did it! We had not even begun writing compositions in school but one fine day, I picked up a blank single lined note book, and just started my first story titled ‘Mummy’s Promise.’ I was hooked! Throughout third grade and subsequently in fourth grade, I churned out stories with unfailing regularity. Anything could set me off. It could be a beautiful party frock that seemed out of reach price wise in that particular month or it could be brilliantly coloured medicinal tablets lying carelessly within reach of children. It could be a precisely laid out and landscaped garden with flowers in a multitude of hues or it could be someone as mundane as the class bully. My eight or nine year old eyes took it all in and sent signals to my brain and then I had to open my notebook, make up a lovely title for the new story and I just had to start writing!

I write because I have a deep seated desire to write. I also write because the words bubble up in me and I need to vent forth on paper. Personally I believe I have always wished to write because I have always been reading! The reading habit was inculcated in me by my mother. She began reading aloud to me when I was six months old and she continued doing that right up to the time I came to upper kindergarten and was able to read quite fluently on my own! My personal motto is ‘one can write only if one reads.’ Words have fascinated me for as long as I can remember. I remember a time during my early elementary school years when I could not even perfectly pronounce the words that I was already well acquainted with. My pronunciation of those new words, while speaking to myself, was atrocious but I knew the meanings of those words and I was using them in my stories. I finally learnt how to pronounce many of those words when the teacher came across them while reading out chapters to us or when I overheard my mother reading out loud to my younger sister. A word that clearly stands out in my mind from this time is ‘anxious’. Another one is ‘exhausted’. In retrospect, I wonder why I simply did not point to the word in the book and ask! I did not even need to utter my own version of its pronunciation!

Today, nature is a huge trigger for me as far as my writing is concerned. Anything can set me off. It could be a beautiful sunset that lights up the sky in myriad colours, it could a tiny bird that is just a splash of deep colour against a verdant bush, it could be the gorgeous melange of the blue and green waters of the Indian Ocean or it could be a rainbow painted across an azure sky, bathed in golden sunlight. Yes, my heart leaps up too, just like William Wordsworth’s did! Whenever I am travelling to a new city or country for work or for pleasure, it is as if my mind begins to take rapid snapshots of all that my eyes are taking in. I do not need to put pen to paper. The words that describe the scene pour in, right into my mind and simply get stored there. I know when I am back home and want to update my blog, it will all start flowing out exactly like I had seen it on a particular day.

I am driven to write by situations too and by events that I might be invited to, usually in my children’s school. My mind rapidly draws parallels to other, similar scenarios, my brain notes the similarities and the differences of two particular events I might have been party to and by the time I am back home, I am ready to write about it! A case in point here would be Sports Day in the present day as compared to the Sports Days that we had when we were in school which were tarred more by the colonial brush. Stories of human tragedies become another driving factor for me. I am very easily able to imagine myself in the affected person’s place and as I write I start feeling what he or she might be feeling and I feel as if I am undergoing or have undergone that particular experience. Over active lachrymal glands do not help in the least and when I am writing about horrifying experiences sometimes I can barely see the lap top screen, as rapidly flowing tears blur everything for me.

A major author who has influenced my writing is the legendary Alfred Wight who wrote under the pen name of James Herriot. He was a British veterinary surgeon and author who wrote about his practice in Yorkshire, England. His gentle self deprecatory humour, his love and his concern for his animal patients and for their owners as well, stand out in all his books. He loved the country side with its dry stone walls, its rolling hills, its wheat fields and has given vivid descriptions of the panoramic vistas of his beloved countryside. This is something that I have tried to emulate in all my writing so far. I feel it is important because it immediately gives the reader the sense that he belongs to that particular place and then he is better able to identify with and appreciate your story. I also love Herriot’s ability to laugh at himself and give the impression that his cures were mostly accidental. Since all his books are semi autobiographical in nature, this prevents them from coming across as being only about Herriot and he never cuts a figure that is too full of himself. In the process he endears himself to us and we find ourselves going back time and again to dip into his stories.

Since I always write about things that have actually occurred in my life or around me I find that this method works perfectly for me. An example would be that I always acknowledge the fact that Indian mothers do tend to be overbearing as compared to mothers from other races. All the Indian mothers who read my blog immediately identify themselves right then and there and can laugh at themselves along with me. A couple of them might even step back and take a good hard look at themselves. That is exactly what James Herriot makes me do every single time I read his books and I always come away feeling humbled by his attitude. Not only was he an extremely successful vet, but he was also a world renowned author who was a multi millionaire! And yet he remained simple to the core and human values shine through his writings. I try to lay a lot of emphasis on human values too through my writing, though, of course, I am nowhere in the league of my favourite author! His death due to cancer left me deeply saddened because I never met him in person and now there would be no more James Herriot books. But his world lives on in each and every one of his stories.

My biggest block as far as my writing is concerned is that I do not like to write sheer fiction. I like to base my writing on real events and I can embellish them with amazing words but what I write is almost always the gospel truth. I do not create events that never happened nor do I embroider facts. I tell it like it is along with its impression on me or its impact on my life or the lives of those around me. My skill lies in drawing parallels, in painting a picture with words for my readers and in imagining consequences or repercussions and presenting them to the reader to savour or deplore as the case may be. Often my readers travel round the world without having stepped out of their houses! So the single largest factor that curbs my writing is my inability to use my vivid imagination to create scenarios that have never occurred. In other words I do not think I am capable of ever writing a full fledged novel solely based on events that have taken place only in my mind!

The way forward to improving my writing conditions would be to try and force myself to write a short story that is completely fictitious and has no resemblance to any person dead or living. I should gradually get into the groove of writing complete fiction and try to overcome that mental block, which, is this case is also turning out to be a writer’s block! I also need to overcome the fact that I need complete peace to write. If there is any kind of work pending I am unable to write till I have tied all the loose ends.For example that pending electricity bill definitely needs to be paid off online before I come anywhere within writing distance of my blog! I need to discipline myself to write no matter what has happened or what needs to be done! Here I can certainly use lessons from my all time favourite James Herriot who ran a huge veterinary practice by day (and often by night!) and still managed to churn out best sellers in between!