Writing and a Promise

 I haven’t written in almost a year. Life happens, but I am also inherently a very lazy person, and it is a very convenient excuse to grab, an excuse I have exploited constantly: life happens.

And it is true, to a certain extent. It was a very busy year professionally and personally. Life happened, waves of both good and bad, a kaleidoscope of life-altering events that I kept gazing at, and by the time I realized it was time to take my eyes away, the year was over, the mirage was reality, and I hadn’t written a single word; I had read a ton of books, which I was happy with, but I hadn’t written a single word, I had just kept talking about how I wanted to write words but I hadn’t actually sat down, opened my laptop, and typed one alphabet after another, forming words and sentences and paragraphs. Life happens. I was reading Shutter Island today, by Dennis Lehane, or actually re-reading it, and a character quotes a Byron line: “My very chains and I grew friends.” A quick internet search tells me it was a line from “Prisoner of Chillon”, and far be it from me to interpret the meaning of the line as well as the poem, but those few words did resonate with me.

Next year I plan to pursue writing more seriously. It’s been nearly a year since I wrote for pleasure, and I was, frankly, afraid that my fingers would refuse to move, that they would only hover over the keyboard while I struggled, as I have often times, to jot down stuff I wanted to talk about, to write. But, and while there is some rustiness, there are cobwebs, I am happy to notice that my fingers still oblige, my mind hasn’t bowed down, there is still a certain sense of lucidity to the thoughts that are better expressed through the written word, that the letters and words, utterly disappointed, and possibly chagrined, by my inactivity, haven’t abandoned me and left me to my own devices. It is a strangely comforting feeling to sit in front of a laptop and type these things out, and know that my fears were unfounded.

I don’t know. I read a few books on writing and I can’t say, hand over my heart, that I learnt anything from them. At the end of the day, the crucial advice that you don’t need a book to know still stands; in order to write, you have to actually sit down and write. There are no magic potions, no waving of wands, no holding hands in the middle of a forest. I wish there was something, for so many reasons. But there isn’t. Life will happen again next year, I will try and read more next year, but I will definitely write more next year. Maybe enter a competition or two; that will be fun. Or pursue that writing course I had to forego last year. Some things to look forward to.