I wanted to write something.
I had an idea, but I knew it was going to take time and effort.
You know how sometimes you don't want to go through the actual thing, but wonder why you can't see the results already. Like wondering why people aren't chanting your name at rock concerts, 10 years before you’re even famous. This felt like one of those times.
I didn't want to go through the motions. Of struggling and scratching my head over a paragraph, of reading it so many times that the sentences didn't make sense anymore.
But I wanted to write something.
After much thinking and pondering, I arrived at a solution that achieved the complex balance between both the requirements of me finishing an article, but also doing it without spending much time or energy on it : I would watch TV now and write the article next month.
And I did precisely that. Watching ambitious chefs on the other side of the world, leaving their cushy jobs and working hard to create food, only to get yelled upon by Gordon Ramsay... All this seemed fun for a while, you know, but then I saw somebody I know write a piece of prose, and somebody else a poem. What they wrote was more philosophical, definitely not the specific and shitty plots I’ve managed to develop so far, but it was definitely some good writing.
‘Good writing’.. what does good writing even mean?
I’ve set one marker for myself : I think good writing sings.
It makes me want to fly.
It makes me want to dance.
As a blanket statement, it makes me want to attempt all the physical activity I would never otherwise dream of.
More accurately, though, it makes me feel the way the little rat in Ratatouille felt about food.
… and I wanted to see if I could do it too.
So without a topic in mind, I start.
I don't really care if it's good. A dear friend once told me that ‘maybe I needed to get all the crappy articles out of my system, before the good ones start coming along.’ And in my world ruled by Constant Procrastination Further Fueled by Low Self Esteem(CPFFLSE), no wiser words had ever been said.
Needless to say, that was the push that made me actually sit down and attempt to write my first article.
Like most successful advices, this one was effective because it played with my mind : instead of trying to protect me from failure, it made me realise that that failure was actually inevitable. And so instead of denying it, I focused on what I’d do if and when it eventually came.
It's not a great leap, you aren't seeing me handing out signed copies of my books or whatever, but it has at least helped me take that first step, and now gone on to get me to a point where I start wanting to write just because I see someone else do it. (Sort of like to make a child do something, all you have to do is to tell them all the other kids are doing it too.). And even though that might not seem like a very commendable incentive, definitely not equal to me writing something because I myself want to, it has at least kept my CPFFLSE at bay.
Now I’m not as afraid of starting anymore, of my plots tanking anymore, of bad criticism anymore, of even indifference anymore, because I no longer think in terms of “it might come one day”. Because I know it's coming, and also that I’m ready for it anyway.
That I’m going to try anyway.
Because however insignificant the development might feel to me at the moment, I know that by trying, I’m only going to improve.
P. S. - Gordon Ramsay’s great. He doesn't mean to yell like that, the guy’s just passionate about food. It’s important to me that everybody understands this.
Source : my own blog at mariamsafoora.wordpress.com