One fine morning you wake up and realise that something is very wrong. Things in your life are in a bad shape, and you wonder how it came to this.
You look back, introspect, and realise that things didn’t become bad overnight. They were slowly getting from bad to worse, but you never noticed until things went out of control. It is only then that you decide to take charge, and improve things.
The reverse is also true.
I recently came across a blog post titled, “The one secret to successful blogging”. Of course, I was hooked and I decided to go ahead and read the entire post.
When I was finished I was more disappointed than anything else. Looking back, I think whenever I have come across any post or article that promises to reveal the “only” secret to anything, I have only faced disappointment.
It would, therefore, be safe to say that there is no one secret for succeeding in anything.
Writing is a craft, and every writer is a craftsman.
Words are the basic tools that writers use to bring out the best in their work. Like any other craft, the best results can be achieved only with the best of tools.
Even if you possess a good set of tools, you need to constantly sharpen and improve them, so that your tool set does not become old and rusted. Similarly, you need to keep learning new words – your writing tools – to be able to write well and long.
A few years back, I was narrating a story I was working on to a friend. After patiently listening to my story, he suddenly sat up straight, and asked, “Have you copied it from somewhere? It sounds like something I have read before.”
You think that you have come up with a great story, and your friend accuses you of Plagiarism. There are very few things in life, let me tell you, that can irritate you more than such an accusation.
I, naturally, asked my friend about the part of my story that sounded copied.
“All of it,” he said in a matter-of-fact tone. Then he continued to tell me how my story was a copy of the so many stories he had read before.
I don’t enjoy cooking, and I don’t like watching reality shows. As a result, I don’t watch the Master Chef shows on TV.
But, as usually happens, one day I was forced to watch the show. The circumstances which forced me to watch the show are not important. What is important, however, is the fact that I watched the show.
At the end of the show, I was surprised by the fact that I actually liked the show. I liked it, not only for the human interest element of the show, but also for the type of challenges that the participants have to face.
These challenges can be used by everyone, including writers, to improve their craft.
September 26th, 2011 
NeoBluePanther 
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