Blather

Saturday, July 19, 2008

- Write!!

- Err....... about what?



For the proud proprietor of 5 expendable short stories (till date), this seems to be the most disproportionately huge, twisted, ugly word balloon sticking out from the surface of the globe. What on Earth to write about? Every single idea that 'strikes', has already been explored a zillion times over. And by people whom you can only hope to idolise! Like Persig says, "Your common sense is nothing more than the voices of thousands and thousands of ghosts from the past." Can you then really claim something (an idea, in this case), to be absolutely your own? It may seem novel to me in my ignorance, but, rest assured that it has already been worked upon and improvised to a level of perfection. Looks like we are all plagiarising, like it or no! And the catch is only about the wrapper you present your idea in. I'm talking about plot, structure, characters etc. Perhaps that is why, I prefer 'reading' films or books to writing. Why write? There is just too much of writing everywhere nowadays, even without understanding. Maybe, like I'm doing now. Maybe, we write more for ourselves than anybody else. Do we simply write to make ourselves understand the subject better? But, why write fiction or poetry then? I know many people who simply 'love' writing, will be scandalised by this object-oriented approach towards it. But, the ghost of these doubts plague me everytime (to quote Neha), I face a blank screen/paper. Isn't there any way to exorcise them?