Being an author

 Well, this is a writer's blog about writing. It will include for sure the writer's block, too. Undoubtedly, antiquity to the post-post-modern era, all sorts of great authors/critics have already written lots on this theme. Here is my own selfsame exploration, so to say.  Indeed, of all the arts, writing, i would say, is the toughest. 

Except life itself as the hardcore material, there is no 'given' in this form of the art. When I sing or play a musical instrument or dance or enact in a play, a structure already exists. Sure i can explore it my own way, but a mould already exists.

That, however, is not the case with writing. When I write a poem, a story, a novel, an essay, out of the rough edged words, I have to create a brand new make-believe world. It has to relate to the larger world, moreover. It has to mirror the experientiality of the larger lived world. The genre, the mode, the form, in brief,  has to be filled with this brand new vision.

When I play my bulbul tarang, or sing a song, for example, I have a notation ready. When I write a poem or a story, nothing is  the given, the ready-made, except the words and a faint inspiration. Often it gets clearer as I write. At times, it may demand its own form. It is, however, born and brought up in the writer's imagination.

Writing is, moreover, a very 'alone' can kind of art. To practice it, for  example, you have for company your own self and the blank page, or the blank screen these days. The ideas, the themes, the characters, their behaviour patterns, the language they would speak, NOTHING  is there. All of these f(r)actions of the writing process keep on instantaneously, simultaneously (re-)mixing in, while unraveling reality itself . I have to suit them to a new proper  structure. 

Sure I need not  write for any given audience or critic. The publishing process, however, is real tough. These days, there are all sorts of "paid" middlemen! Much worse is the social media. Any and every sort of mushy trash, bubbly words without much thought, gets published! The 'thumbs up' are often extended without much thought either, but it gives people a swollen head, right?

Writing has yet another issue which other arts rarely face. Writing faces , in brief, all sorts of censorships, formal/by the government, and informal by the society. No wonder, there are all sorts of cliques, caste-based, regional, political, and so on, acting as a witch like midwife to the newborn  piece of writing 

No wonder, given such restrictions, seen/unseen, but always felt, an author, a deeply sensitive soul, may experience a writer's block. Often it leads, however, to self-reflexivity, a deep analytical look at oneself, very necessary to every committed artist.

Well, all said and done, no joy can equal the process of writing. The product is so rich, so complex that it touches every field of0 experience, aesthetics to rhetoric and sociology, via psychology and philosophy. Unique is its relationship with science, too. Being an author, even when not much touted, is a very enriching process. Truly it is like the experience of a mother when first she sees her baby born the natural way, a process extremely tough, difficult, painful, but fulfilling and strengthening!

 Pratima@ An author is a jack of no trade, but a master of all!