To churn out an article or a book is a difficult task, but to have it published is more toilsome
These days, it appears that writers are fading out — and for a good reason. There is hardly a significant group of people left who would find the time to read a few sentences, let alone a paragraph, an article or a book. Things have changed over the years and so have peoples’ preferences, and reading, unfortunately, does not figure in their priorities.
One might be forced to think that writers are here at fault. But if one were to scan through contemporary fiction, adventure, romance and drama books, one would find the current batch as interesting and as captivating as their predecessors, in whose time reading was a widely popular thing. One thing has changed though and that is the addition of books and magazines that focus more on graphic illustrations. Readers, in general, opt to browse through these without reading the accompanying text. Pictures are a sure-fire distraction be they in the form of a TV programme, a film, a video or a static newspaper image. In all fairness to readers, they have found alternatives that are more engaging than the printed word.
Then there are other attributes to today’s lifestyle that have brought about newer things into existence. Emails and sms are a couple of them. Where once emphasis used to be on writing grammatically correct and syntactically precise prose, it is now our preference to write in a debilitatingly concise manner, aiming only to get the message across. Alphanumeric messages, sans vowels, zip across the global information highways, defacing prose, as some of us can testify. The sad part is that this mode of communication has taken the world by storm and by the looks of it, is here to stay for a very long time.
Writers, poor writers ... they toil hard to find the right ideas and give them the perfect rendition. For them, a write-up begins with an inspiration, which develops into an idea through a laborious mechanism involving a lot of imagination. Building on it, they create a literary work. And ideas do not come in easy, not to the majority of minds which are too preoccupied with everyday events to ponder over any form of novelty. And when they do come, ideas come with wings. The better the idea, the bigger the wings and yes, they can fly away quickly, rendering the imagination bone dry.
An inspirational moment may carry the stirrings of a new work, and when this moment arrives, one feels a whole set of characters dancing around the main theme and a plot for a new work of awesome magnitude is born. Fruitful thoughts dance in the air, rich situations develop from dust, fluent dialogues execute in the raw and characters accept them as if they were their own skin. But if not promptly tapped, this fleeting moment flies away as suddenly as it had appeared and a while later, when one’s train of thought finds an alternative focus, one finds that the whole idea has disappeared into thin air.
Usually, the most fertile grounds for literary inspiration are quiet and picturesque surroundings where the only object interfering with one’s thoughts is the sound of the writer’s own breathing. If one is lucky, he finds such a place and if luck keeps smiling, he finds nature frolicking with his imagination. The environs smack of spring and the surroundings become a picture of mirth. Every sound is a sweet chime and every word is a perfect rhyme. Stretch a hand out and a butterfly tickles it; look up and nature smiles back. A writer’s thoughts become fluid and his narrative turns superlative. Nouns, verbs, adjectives, in short the entire grammar comes out served on a silver platter. As his thought processes race, pencil screeches uncontrollably on paper, leaving brilliant narrative as skid marks. The writer is on fire, the whole text is weighted to perfection and the prose is truly sublime. The trick is to unleash one’s thoughts on paper before the moment passes him by.
With time, the write-up is completed and then comes the more difficult part, that is, of confronting the editor and hoping that the article passes his scrutiny. If one is a struggling writer (95 per cent writers are) one faces the editor with imploring eyes and obsequious demeanour, dancing at his every command. The hard toiled work is left at the editor’s mercy, whose mood may or may not be in sync with the writer’s line of thinking. In another day or two, the scribe wakes up to the crude realization that his article has been summarily rejected and mercilessly thrown away. But all struggling writers have innate reserves of fortitude, which forces them to pick up the discarded piece and start improving upon it. The repeated attempts in fine-tuning the work serve to distort the original meaning and decimate the innate beauty of the idea, but this is a last ditch resurrection attempt that is definitely worth a try.
Every dog has his day and when it’s the writer’s day his work is finally accepted and published. This is where half his worries stop, but the other half, that of audience acceptance, begin. The recipients of his work include a forced audience who are his close friends and acquaintances. He proudly sends out emails to far away friends and hands printouts to those living in the vicinity. This is an instinctive behaviour to ensure that at least someone would read the work. Though friendship has no boundaries, there is a general rule that enunciates such a demarcation. This rule states that friends would remain friends as long as you keep them away from your literary quests. Overzealous writers fail to understand this and keep bombarding friends with their write-ups till they start losing them rather rapidly.
In the end, after all the toil and hard work, a writer discovers that the only person who has read and enjoyed his article is himself. But rejuvenation comes in many forms and for a writer, it comes in the guise of seeing his work in print. This has a catalytic effect on his thought processes and his creative juices start flowing again. Even though the fallout of his literary pursuits may have started to manifest itself as immature aging, constant stress, hair (and friend) loss etc., he arranges his writing apparatus. Pen and paper in hand, an open mind to boot, he starts the tedious and time honoured search for a new idea, which would form the basis of his next article, essay or book.
These days, it appears that writers are fading out — and for a good reason. There is hardly a significant group of people left who would find the time to read a few sentences, let alone a paragraph, an article or a book. Things have changed over the years and so have peoples’ preferences, and reading, unfortunately, does not figure in their priorities.
