When the Muse Catches
May 16 2008 | Views 77 |
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Tags: muse creative writing blogging free writing writer's block ruskin bond
Tags: muse creative writing blogging free writing writer's block ruskin bond
Plato said that the beginning was the most important part of the work. But he did not say that it was the most difficult too! How many times have I begun writing something, only to jettison it soon for want of inspiration?
Some times, the urge to put pen to paper is very strong but, more often than not, it is difficult to find something interesting enough to write about. For some of the more profilic bloggers on Sulekha, evoking the muse does not appear to be difficult. They are perhaps like Ruskin Bond for whom writing is the simplest pleasure in the world. But I must confess that for me, it has proven to be most difficult.
I then turned to Internet for inspiration. Free writing was something which was recommended to get over the writer's block. It was some consolation that I was not the only one caught in this predicament. Even the most celebrated authors are reported to have been afflicted with this malady. I was advised to write continuosly for ten minutes every day. Non stop, that is. Without lifting the pen from the paper. I was neither to mind the subject nor the grammar. It was also suggested, helpfully, that it would be perfectly all right if I were to simply repeat that I did not know what to write. No corrections were allowed. In a nutshell, I was required to produce as much drivel as I was capable of in ten minutes. The whole exercise was supoosedly a kind of catharasis which was guaranteed to exorcise the ghosts which inhabit the writer's block and inhibit the creative juices from flowing freely! And I was to do this exercise, atleast once daily till such time as the muse really caught hold of me. It was from out of this potpourri of unrelated words and disjointed sentences that inspiration was to be had for future stories.
So it was to free writing that I devoted my energies. I wrote and wrote as instructed and produced much kindling for the non existent fire place!You would ask me if it worked for me? What do you think? I could atleast write the present piece!
Some times, the urge to put pen to paper is very strong but, more often than not, it is difficult to find something interesting enough to write about. For some of the more profilic bloggers on Sulekha, evoking the muse does not appear to be difficult. They are perhaps like Ruskin Bond for whom writing is the simplest pleasure in the world. But I must confess that for me, it has proven to be most difficult.
I then turned to Internet for inspiration. Free writing was something which was recommended to get over the writer's block. It was some consolation that I was not the only one caught in this predicament. Even the most celebrated authors are reported to have been afflicted with this malady. I was advised to write continuosly for ten minutes every day. Non stop, that is. Without lifting the pen from the paper. I was neither to mind the subject nor the grammar. It was also suggested, helpfully, that it would be perfectly all right if I were to simply repeat that I did not know what to write. No corrections were allowed. In a nutshell, I was required to produce as much drivel as I was capable of in ten minutes. The whole exercise was supoosedly a kind of catharasis which was guaranteed to exorcise the ghosts which inhabit the writer's block and inhibit the creative juices from flowing freely! And I was to do this exercise, atleast once daily till such time as the muse really caught hold of me. It was from out of this potpourri of unrelated words and disjointed sentences that inspiration was to be had for future stories.
So it was to free writing that I devoted my energies. I wrote and wrote as instructed and produced much kindling for the non existent fire place!You would ask me if it worked for me? What do you think? I could atleast write the present piece!
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