Leave it to the muse.

Creating anything is quite the responsibility.
When I started writing a couple of years back, I’d find it incredibly hard to rack up words despite loving the art. Putting things on a page required a tremendous amount of willpower. Added to this, I wasn’t (still am not for that matter) particularly gifted. I’d only write when I thought I was struck by a genius idea. Then I’d go through hours of critiquing my work, days, or months of writing and rewriting the same thing and then eventually I’d bin it. That idea would never see the light of day.

I’ll tell you what. Not much has changed. I am still a writer lost for words. But a few months ago, I started to deceive myself and I think its working.

These days, writing has become more tolerable as an art I practice everyday because I show up to the desk before 6am every morning with a cuppa to serve as a humble scribe.
My self-assigned job description is to literally play with the muse- to sit at the desk, and catch thoughts I imagine to be in the air, and just write. One word after the other. But this job isn’t without its ground rules.

• Rule number 1 is to show up when the thoughts are ready and that time is 6am.

• Rule number 2 is to clock out at 12noon but make sure what they (the thoughts I mean) have to say is written with enough satisfaction

• Rule number 3 is- Once the job is done, its done. Go home.

• And the last rule, number 4, which arguably is the most important is -Show up tomorrow.

Now, it is as silly and unintelligent as it sounds. But that’s the point.

Our greatest agony as humans is probably that we’ve got a story within us waiting to be told and expressed. But, perhaps an even greater agony would be if we ourselves stood as an obstacle to its telling. For those who are chronic over-thinkers like myself, showing up to serve as an unintelligent barren vessel for art rather than as its source is the perfect kind of humbling we need to get to work.

Leave it to the muse. Show up tomorrow.

“Shipping” BY NOON.

Shipping by noon is my practice of crystallising my thoughts into a post by lunchtime everyday. And I’ll be honest, some mornings I have nothing to give but some really corny title combinations and some other mornings like today, I am empty.

I’ve been sat at my desk since 6am and not a word has been typed.

But thoughts are there. And they creep in. Only they’re just not the kind you want.

Maybe.. today is not the day for the creative endeavour.

Maybe.. I should read some more. That might plant a seed of an idea that I can grow into a post in the afternoon (or tomorrow).

Maybe..I should leave it to the end of the day - I’ll probably have the greatest creative idea ever by then.

So on mornings like these what do I do?

I sit through the struggle of words until about 8:30am tops. I allow myself to be discontent and I probably yawn through my own writing because its shallowness both bores and exhausts me.

But I ship by noon anyway. I publish the post that I forced myself to write quickly. I keep my promise.

And although, I might have the greatest-ever idea for a post in the afternoon, I make a call to not post about it or carry it over the next day deliberately. I force myself to be content by writing it down those great ideas into my diary instead.

“But why?” - you may ask.

Because its a promise and a discipline that forces me to foolishly believe in the hope of a new day, of new possibilities and opportunities. Somehow that I think. makes for a better way of living.

See you tomorrow.

“Shipping, because it doesn't count if you don't share it.”- Seth Godin

Kill your darlings

A year ago now, I took a writing class at university. It was quite accidental. I chanced upon it much like how I discovered other things (by procrastination). But here, I heard the most useful writing advice ever.

Sometimes we get too precious about beginnings. The thing is- beginnings have too much packaging. The fluff that makes it land softer is unnecessary and such a waste of time. That’s what kill your darlings is about. It means- almost always, the first few sentences in your drafts (which people tend to be most precious about) is useless.