The joys and challenges of writing

Writer's Life: A-state-of-the-heart

Be your own boss. Follow your heart. Do something you love. Follow your passion. Yada, Yada. Blah, Blah.

All of us writers got sold to these ideas that were hammered from all sides until the cliches became the Raison de'etre for us. We quit the rat race to be on a different plane. But being your own boss can be the damned hardest thing. I discovered this lately. And many fellow writers must already be resonating with the truth of what I write here, much earlier.

When I quit, I thought I would now churn out books by the dozen. All those ideas waiting to be born and growing in my brain like the child in the womb of a pregnant woman gets delivered. I had all the time at my disposal, no boss to answer to, and I would do things I love. So, I thought I would be unstoppable.

But it has been four full years, 1460 days and still no work of mine is in the final stages. In the meantime, I have completed many professional gigs from clients of my copy-writing circle as a freelancer. But that one creative gig, the personal one, is yet to see the light of the day.

Recently I was with a circle of people who were all into businesses and jobs. They had all the state-of-the-art things. Expensive shoes to wear, apple watches, top brands of clothes to get into, phones to flaunt, and big SUVs to drive. I had bartered the ownership of these things with a minimalist lifestyle so that I could be free to write and not be a part of the rat race. The exalted thought of leaving a legacy behind of writing a work that influences the thought processes of people; creating a positive world is more important than these material possessions. So, I chose to live with my state-of-the-heart rather than be with the state-of-the-art material possessions.

The two novels I co-wrote with my son; the 50 short stories I published were a consolation but didn't match the scale of achievements of my peers in businesses and jobs. My report card read: Unsatisfactory Performance. So, I was in a limbo of sorts. I am neither in the rat race and nor into the exalted writing zone.

We may all have our own definitions of achievement and success and mine may sound harsh or lenient depending on how others view it. The two traditionally published novels need not be just a consolation but a stupendous achievement. But in my framework, I know I could have done better.

So, I wondered where I went wrong and what happened to me as a creative writer. And here is my broader analysis. It compares my life when I was a corporate employee with the period of three years in which I am my own creative writer boss.

Not having a 9 to 5, douses the fire

With no bio-metrics to punch; no threat of being fired from your job for coming late; no important deadlines to pursue; or morning meetings to attend; I slept late (binging on TV series, movies) and getting up late. The sun would be half up in the sky and before I would gather my wits, it would be early evening. In other words, half the work day gone and 80% of the nine to five gone.

Anyway, every day, I tell myself I still have 9 hours to go. But then, one after the other, something keeps creeping up. The courier, the ironing man, the milkman, the maid. And sometimes it is the bank work. If it is not the bank work, then it is some electric breakdown or a plumbing problem. Or a health problem concerning me or my wife. Or some guest arriving. Or some or other shit that keeps piling all the day to eat away at my productivity. The time somehow fills with all the things that magically never show up when you are busy minting money at the corporate office. But when you are at home, a deluge of unmanageable proportions hits you.

So by the time this shit gets done and I look at the clock, it is 6 O'clock.

Me time is also surfing time

Finally, it is time to sit at the computer. I stare at the blinking cursor on the blank page. Sometimes I write with a frenzy but a lot of times I have to struggle with writer's under developed creative muscle. No, it is not the writer's block. That is its own beast. What I am saying is that in writing, it is tough to be creative. Concepts need a mighty heft, and it is difficult to write stirring paragraphs, one after the other. Creating the slide that will suck the reader in is a hard job. Very hard. You don't have to patch stuff from google as in a job. You don't have to dig for data, other people's work. Damn it, you don't even have a brief or direction. No equivalent of a google map in the writing world. And as a writer, the world expects you to produce a masterpiece out of thin air. Create something from your imagination.