Writer's Block

I am suffering from Writer’s block. I always used to think that writer’s block is when a writer doesn’t have an idea on what to write. In my case, its more like, what all to write. Whenever I open the site and start writing, so many thoughts and threads emerge that I have no clue which to pick. Being meticulous, I start thinking on the structure of the blog and find out that all the threads are so interlinked that its difficult to structure it and concentrate on just one line of though.

This made me think of my varied experiences w.r.t writing, be it letters, exams, application forms, creative writing etc. Some of them are below:

Case 1: Letter writing
I have a good friend with whom I am not in touch with him for nearly 2 years now but that friendship, or the feeling of it is still there. He was with me in Kanpur and introduced me to antiquate of drinking, singing, holding a party and writing. One day he asked me to post for him a bulky envelope that required postage stamps of Rs 20/-. I asked him what it was….probably some legal documents. It was his weekly letter to his father.

“Me: WEEKLY LETTER !! what the hell you have written?”
“P: O! Nothing great….just how was my time at the job, at hostel, with you guys etc”
“Me: How many pages?”
“P: 23 in all, A4 both sides”
“Me: Shit!!”

I later learned that his father considered P as a serious disappointment when it came to writing. “ he thinks that I don’t write enough….don’t know how to express my experiences in words” P later told me.

I later had a chance to go through one of his father’s letter….. only partly. It was describing his recent journey to some tour in the interior part of the state. The letter started with how his morning was on the day of travel, what was his mode of transport, what were his feeling for the rick driver that delivered him to station, his conversations, and his reflection on the same, with his fellow unknown travelers in the train …….. and on and on. That 2 day journey covered some 40+ pages. And it was not just description of incidents, it contained quotes, reference of articles, philosophy…..everything.

Now that’s one way of writing. Good in a way that a person is aware of his thought process and is also able to pen down the same at the end of two days. Bad in the form that it does not allow or restricts, the reader to form his own opinions or reflect on it. There is little scope left for imagination of reader or interpretation.

Case 2: Exam writing.

All of you have gone through the same. How to handle writing in exams was most hilariously handled by my friend M.
Now M is a multi-talented person. His idea of going to an exam was always to carry a chit with him (for cheating purpose). His talent was of writing on a chit, of size 1sq inch, complete answers of at least 5 questions. The answers to each question, when expanded to a normal answering sheet, could be expanded to 15 sheets. Moreover, the chit was folded in such a way that he could cover it under his first tow fingers and both sides of the paper could be flipped without lifting the fingers. In school, he could carry a 500 word essay written on his eraser.

I remember an incident in which we got a very tough paper in 3rd year. This guy got the highest marks in the paper. When we inquired on how he managed to attain this feat, his reply was

“ M: How is the paper evaluation done. Do you know that?”
“ We: Ya! The number of sheets that you fill, one supplementary sheet addition is a must”
“M: Rt. In this paper I added 4 supp. Sheets”
“We: How did u manage that. It was hard for us even to fill in the main sheet”
“M: Easy. I consistently managed to write just 4 words per line, by drawing a margin line on both sides of the sheet and then expanding each word in length”
“We: But still……how 4 supp. There was not much to write. Not even the text book had this much content”
“M: Ya rt. For example my answer to Q2, despite expansion, was covered in 3 pages. All that I did was, repeated what I had written in those three pages 4 times back to back. Got 19 out of 20 in that question. See how much our evaluators read??”

You cant help but admire this intelligence of exploiting the system and at the same time cry for the system.

Case 3: Creative writing

What is this. Here is an example.

In schools, primarily in missionary schools, you have a subject called ‘Moral Science’. Every student dreads this subject….. Imagine 50 rowdy boys sitting in a class trying to learn morals. And to top it up, you have to give an exam on the same. And there were actually books on the subject. Phew!!

So, here we are about to give an exam on the same (Which you have to pass…else you cant be promoted to the next class….even if you pass in all the other subjects).

Then there was this Bong guy in the class who was all cool about the paper. So we voiced our concerns and he said

“B: Chill man….whats to worry about. Its no big deal”
“Me: No big deal. You know the stakes.”
“B: Ya! Don’t worry. You know how you can pass on this paper?”
“Me: How?”
“B: Simple. When you answer the paper. Write everything that you would not be doing ever in your life. That is Moral Science”

WORDS OF WISDOM. So precisely and concisely explained. This is what I like about some people. Clarity of thought.

Needless to say, I always passed with no sweat. But this was the kind of writing that required me to be creative while writing. I could have been a famous fiction writer if I could have preserved all the answer papers I have given in the subject in my school period. The cases I used to create as examples while answering questions on morals and ethics. It was creative writing in extreme.

So long now…..need to get back to work. More creative writing call me as I create my KRAs, Next years business plans and projections.