Writer’s block – Close Read

32 days and counting

It’s been 32 days since I’ve been able to write in that half-ranting half-jargon-dropping style that’s always been the clearest indication that I’m excited about something (yes, my writing tells me things I can’t otherwise figure out). In the last three weeks, I’ve written three pieces for The Wire, and all of them were coughed-spluttered-staccatoed out. I dearly miss the flow and 32 days is the longest it’s been gone.

I’m not sure which one the causes are and which the effect – but periods of the block are also accompanied by the inability to think things through, being scatter-brained and easily distracted, and a sense of general disinterestedness. And when I can’t write normally, I can’t read or ideate normally either; even the way I’ve ratified and edited submissions for The Wire took a toll.

I’ve tried everything that’s worked in the past to clear the block but nothing has worked. I tried writing more, reading more, cathartic music; moving around, meeting people, changes of scenery; got into a routine I’ve traditionally reserved for phases like this, a diet, some exercise. This is frightening – I need a new solution and I’ve no idea where to look. Do you just wait for your block to fade or do you have a remedy for it?

Featured image credit: Matthias Ripp/Flickr, CC BY 2.0.

The pain is gone.

Reading some pages of fiction touched off old memories that I’d forgotten existed, bringing back to life words and, with them, sensations. Words were between words, ideas between ideas, color underneath hue.

Earlier, I wrote not to remember or document, I wrote because I knew of no other way to digest the world; when I wrote, I grew up. Every phrase I pushed back into the inspiration whence it had come, like a bullet pressed back into the wound, I’d bleed, but the blood would be blood, just there, undigested like a colored liquid I could see, feel it crawling, but not speak about. So I wrote relentlessly, good or bad, profound or – as often was the case – meaningless.

And then I’d read myself, I’d grow up just a little, and there’d be a little more to think about life. I’m not much of a traveller, a mover even, so over time, what I wrote about would have become mundane, featureless, like a barren tract of land that lay rasping, unable to breathe air and already alien to water because it had eaten and suckled on itself, if not for books. I grew up on the minutes of lives very different from my own – or whatever lay beneath all the pages of my ink – and soon couldn’t think for myself without even the gentlest consideration of another character’s opinion.

As the years passed, I began to frighten me, I was not comfortable with the decisions I made for myself. It wasn’t that I feared that I’d be the only one to blame; in fact, that thought had never struck. No, it was simply the lack of awareness of the self, a full man beneath the patina of literature, of scientific intellect and philosophical leanings, built upon all the uncertainties and failures that the litterateur above had thwarted. A part of me had gambled me away for knowledge of the desires of other men and women, while another waited, rather cowered, in its weakening shadow.

Finally, one day, the world arrived, and robbed me away: from books, from stories, from oh-so-important The Others. What was left of me emerged, looking upon the world as a continuous litany of disappointment, the pain and the shock of humiliation – much of it in my own eyes – still evident, and took its first few steps. It tottered. It fell. It stood up, and it fell again. When it learned to stand up and straight, it refused to fall ever again.

The child was man, the writer was gone, the learner was robbed, and the world was upon me, smothering me, it smothers me still… and then I found books once more. I long to return to my shell but the emergence seems irreversible. Now, when I look upon the words, I see words: I see that they are red, viscous, flowing only with steep gradient, still and even tending to crenellate. I know that it is blood, but the nerves are deadened. The pain is gone. It is difficult to grow up when the pain is gone.

The wayward and cowardly introspector

No water and power at home today, so I wish you a horrible Tamil New Year’s Day, too. With nothing much to do – and the sun beating down upon Chennai at an unwavering 33° C that, in the company of still airs and 80% humidity, feels simply unlivable in – I sat around almost all day and thought about my life. Yes, unlivable-in conditions are always a good time to think about life.

For the last three weeks, the science editor at The Hindu, the man who becomes my boss every Wednesday, has been getting irritated at me and with good reason: I haven’t written anything for the science page. In fact, my only contribution to this page that comes out every Thursday has been the correction of a few spelling mistakes.

I’m not going to go on about not finding stories that suit my style or some shit like that. I haven’t been writing because I haven’t been looking for stories, and I haven’t been writing because, somehow, I haven’t been able to write. Yes, writers’ block (I’ve always doubted the validity of this excuse – sure, writers claim to experience it all the time, but what are the symptoms? I’m actually surprised the condition’s immense subjectivity hasn’t seen itself forced into nonexistence).

Why haven’t I been looking for stories? Two reasons. 1) I’m not able to ‘care about the world’ in that ‘direction’, and 2) Some other stuff came my way that seemed quite exciting. This isn’t to say writing stories for The Hindu isn’t exciting: I get such a kick out of seeing my name in one of the most respected newspapers in India.

You see, my responsibilities at The Hindu include (but are not limited to) writing for the science page once a week, writing a fortnightly column for Education Plus, concocting a weekly science quiz for the In School edition, handling The Hindu Blogs – that means ensuring our bloggers are happy and motivated, the content always meets the high standards we’ve come to set, the blogs section of the site is doing well in terms of hits and user engagement, and bringing in more bloggers into the fray – working with visualizations, writing that occasional OpEd, and helping out with the tech. side of things – editorially or managerially.

So not writing for the science page doesn’t really leave me in the lurch. I can’t just sit idle.

The writers’ block, I must admit, is just me losing interest, probably because I cycle my attention to focus on different things periodically over time.

Through this introspection, I’ve realized that I’m not interested in being a journalist. I’ve just been wayward in life, not paying much attention to what I’ve been or not been interested in, while following these simple rules which The Hindu has found a way to use:

Don’t give up… easily.
Always contribute.
Take initiative.

The pro is that, even while working with a national daily, I’ve worked in a variety of environments that any other pukka journalist might not have had the opportunity to. The con is that I can’t think of anything I’m specialized to do.

Well, there’s blogging. I can’t really put my finger on why but I love blogging. I love writing – good writing, especially (I only recently found a mentor who could really help me improve my narratives) – and I love creating such writing about different things in my life, and I love enabling other people to do the same thing.

But the buck stops there.

There’s another route I’ve often considered – academics, research, philosophy, the like – but I’ve been repeatedly convinced by a friend that if I really want to make a difference, I should consider journalism to be a better option than sitting at a desk and writing about metaphysical stuff. Right now, I’m considering academics all over again. Maybe an hour from now that friend will turn up and tell me why I’m thinking wrong.

But by then, all this wonderment will have festered into one giant carbuncle of self-doubt and, eventually, that ultimate question: What if my interests and strengths don’t coincide with the activities that are capable of making a difference in this world? Or is the pursuit of individual interests the biggest difference anyone can make?

OK, I know what I need. I need the guts to be able to answer these questions myself.