Wanna be a writer?

Agatha Christie

Do you wanna be a writer? Are you sometimes beseiged by the desire to put pen to paper and create some new reality that true to you, truer than 'real' life? Isaac Azimov said that if his doctor told him he had only six minutes to live, he wouldn't brood. Instead, he would "type a little faster." That's pretty much my point of view. And not because it's 'glamorous'; it's not. It's a lonely, insular enterprise that often leaves your loved ones accusing you (quite rightly) of being self-centred and disconnected with the world in general.

A YouGov poll just released finds that becoming a writer is considered as the most desirable job in Britain. 60% of people said they’d like to do it for a living. Fewer people listed being a TV presenter or a movie star! This has thrown up interesting debates on the net about writers and the writer’s life.

Maya Angelou

George Orwell described writing a book as “a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness.” If this isn’t graphic enough, consider Hemingway’s quote: “There’s nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.” And bleed, we do. It can strain one’s personal life, too, since the writer is frequently absorbed with her own imagination and kind of oblivious to her surroundings.  I know that even while sitting and watching TV with my family, for instance, I’m often lost in my character’s fate or a particular plot point in the work in progress.

And then there’s rejection to cope with. Not only rejection by publishers, but by readers. There will always be some people who hate what you write, others who think it’s fair to criticize because you write. Strangely enough, everyone feels there’s a hidden writer inside him! It seems so doable until you actually get down to it. So, why write?

It’s because we have to. Those of us who are writers, don’t really have a choice. There’s this thing inside of us- call it a demon or muse or merely some mysterious urging- that won’t go away until it gets out on paper. As Maya Angelou said: “There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” (Quote from I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings).