Writing, Among Other Things
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.
A blog is a place where one writes, for others to read.
Now, why one would want to be read is a question whose answer may vary from one writer to another, but, whatever one’s reason for wanting to be read may be, there is another question that needs to be asked by every writer:
“Why should someone want to read what you write?”
If we look at blogs, it is easy to see that some of our favourite blogs are those which educate us, in addition to entertaining us. In today’s world, there are more than enough sources of entertainment, but the sources of education are few and far between. Most blogs that are popular today are a great source of knowledge for people who want to educate themselves about the subject the blogger writes about.
Ours is a weird world.
Most of the times we either have too much of a thing, or too little. We hardly ever have the right amount of anything, even words.
A writer’s job is to write. But, how many words are needed to describe an emotion, a scene, or an event is arbitrary. I may do it in a thousand, you may do it in a hundred.
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