I love getting up early in the morning. It’s so much more satisfying to see the day go by, rather than to hear or just having to imagine about it. Like most writers, I find a blank screen intimidating. Every morning, it’s like I become a virgin all over again, having sex for the first time – awkward, silly, struggling to put on the condom, off-target, slipping out, giggling.

I read somewhere that writers are writing even when they are just staring out of the window. So I do just that – look at the sun, look at the bright, blue sky, look at the trees, hear the birds, and pop, something comes into my head and I sit down to write, including these words.

I have tried writing with music playing in the background, and without it as well, but find both distracting. I am trying to write about something that has never been written about, but I know that’s impossible, so I write something that has been written about, but not in this manner. I start feeling hungry. I ignore the growling and grumbling sounds my stomach makes.

One of the most irritating problems you can develop as a writer, is you can’t look at anything, without wanting to write about it. “Oh, look at that bird? It is so pretty. Its like God painted it when he was happy.” “The sky – purple and orange – the make-up set that the sky can borrow only from dawn;” Why? Why this obsessive need to describe everything, huh? Why?

Metaphors, similes, descriptions – there are so many of them, yet, it is mind-numbing to see how different writers use them differently. The other day I was walking by the Darling Harbor – whoever named it Darling – anyway, so while I was looking at everything with the ridiculous, never-resting, driving-me-insane “Writer’s Eye,” few buildings on my left, instantly painted an image in my mind. “The buildings are sticking out of the earth like French fries out of a box,” my mind said.  It sounded impressive, and I accepted it with, “Ah, well, I am a writer. Can’t help it, can I?”

When I am stuck, I read quotes on writing by great writers of the past and present. When I am reading them, my eyebrows remain raised, my lips remain stretched, and my heart keeps singing. Some of them stay with me for a long time. Quotes like, “Writing isn’t hard. All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know” – which I think is by Hemingway.  Or, “There is no real ending. It’s just the place where you stop the story – Frank Herbert” Some one like Isaac Asimov says, “If the doctor says I have six minutes to live, I wouldn’t mourn, I will only type faster.” This is the kind of intensity; the kind of madness that a writer needs to possess. Rilke said, you should confess to yourself that you will die if you are prohibited from writing. I know I will.

My mind is thinking constantly, always, all the time. I am not alone, ever. My thoughts keep ringing the bells in my head. It forced me buy a diary, so that I could get rid of them as soon as they arrive in my mind. I recently discovered, there are so many people on this planet – everyone is alive, has flesh and blood and has come out of their mum’s vaginas, grew up and is doing something. Children, teenagers, boys, girls, fat people, ugly people, the retarded, old people, blind people, tall, short, bald, black, brown, white. These are the people who feature in our stories; these are the people who make our characters believable.

That reminds me, I saw a black man yesterday, perhaps in his thirties, sitting on a platform bench and shaking his head from left to right, and talking to himself. His bag lay on the ground beside him. He was wearing a beanie cap, a white sweater with embroidery, track pants and sport shoes. His body was leaning forward. His knees supported his forearms. When I saw him from my train window, I thought, “That’s someone I can write about.” And may be I will, someday. But that’s the magic of being a writer. Nothing seems mundane.

When I finally got down at a station to catch a connecting train, that’s when a thought struck me. “Hmm, why not write about a writer writing about a writer? Why not write about me?” I thought. And so perhaps that’s what I am doing right now. Plus it will also help me get the first thousand words out of the way.  Chicken Soup for the Writer’s Soul is a good book, if you want to cry and learn that all writers are human beings first. They become Gods after they learn how to bleed, if it makes any sense to you.

One of the lessons I have learned is that nothing you do in a day goes to waste, except if you’re only dreaming about becoming a writer, without doing nothing about it – more precisely, writing. Now, that’s criminal. You should be hanged if you are doing that. So as I was saying, you are taking a dump – your mind is working, you are taking a walk – your mind is working, you are looking at an old couple find their way around in a humongous departmental store, and the lady saying, ‘I think we should buy that, or I will go home and say, now why didn’t we get that?’ – your mind is working, you are looking at your clothes hung on a string, dancing gently in the breeze - your mind is working. It’s just a question of sitting in front of your computer, and making your fingers work.

I am not even finished yet, but I still press control A and Alt T plus W, to see how many words I’ve managed to get on paper. And while I am writing this, I know even this is contributing towards my word count.

My problem as a writer begins when I am done with a story, because I can’t go back and consume it all over again. When I am through with a story, it feels like I have digested a huge melon that was stuck in my throat, and after it’s in my stomach, I don’t want to get it back up to my throat. Perhaps, it will hurt even more this time. So I continue to shove other melons down my throat, and keep the first one waiting, till the very end. I might, might not get to it.  

I check the word count, and I have crossed the thousand word mark. I shake my head in relief. I feel the tension easing, like someone has just helped me cure my constipation by sticking glycerin suppositories up my butt.

I may complain and crib about having to write, but I have noticed that on days that I don’t write, I feel depressed. A feeling that is not pleasant – it makes me feel that my life is worthless. So, why let that feeling surface, when I can simply write, like now. I started to write this piece, thinking I will write something intelligent and thought-provoking, but instead ended up writing what you’ve just read. Had it gone according to my plan, I would have posted this in the ‘Short Story’ section, but I know it really belongs to the ‘Non-Fiction’ section.

BTW  - 1,283 words. My day has finally begun. I can at least eat in peace.

Always keep one thing in mind – “…just write, write and keep on writing” – Ken McLeod.