Learnings From One–Year of Sincere Writing and Blogging

One-Year of Writing and Blogging

I think a lot more.

I read a lot more. I scroll blogs for hours. I highlight words while I read. I note them down. I try to go through them again.

I write a lot more. I ask myself why shall I not write on a Sunday. The world goes on. So I go on describing it.

I broke up with redundant words. I perfect the Whatsapp messages and the emails I send. My scrutinizing eyes don’t even spare the responses of my friends.

When I wake up, I think about writing instead of thinking about going to the toilet. I am burdened by guilt the day I don’t write. The day I write well, I feel liberated.

In the initial days, I pushed out one article every ten days. Now I write one article every two days. Sometimes one article every day.

Also Read: How to Write daily and my journey as a writer.

I think I want to achieve an equilibrium of writing something meaningful every day. Whether it be a poem or a story or a memoir or a self-help piece or a self-reflective essay or a well-researched life lesson or philosophy.

I write better about nature now. About its eccentric eucalyptuses, its hearty hibiscuses, its jagged jackfruits, its beautiful Brahmini kites, and its mighty mountains.

I have understood the trend of my psychological process when I discover some good writing. First, awe escapes out of my mouth. Then my heart sinks with jealousy. Especially of the self-learned bloggers and writers. I go through their websites for hours and read voraciously. I note down the beautiful words they have used. I thrash myself for not publishing earlier. I tell myself that they started long ago and I would get better with time. That someone would read my writing and would transfer to the world I had created. Like those writers had sent me. Then I comment on their articles telling them how much I loved what they wrote and that I learned a lot. Then I smile. I get high on the energy and the power that the creative world carries. And then I fly to my own art abode.

Now I publish often. I market often. I wonder why I need to reach out to people and ask them to read my writing. Why can’t I just write and wait for it to bloom? Why do I have to share on Twitter and social media and do UTM tagging? Then I ask myself how would people see if I don’t share?

How would one know about the pink, yellow, red flowers that rarely bloom in the driest desert of Atacama if someone doesn’t share their pictures with the rest?

And then I log onto Facebook and Twitter.

I think I can crack this subtle art of reaching out and sharing. But the next moment I am listless. And I go back to writing. Or I unlock my Kindle.

I have started to tune myself to the rhythms of the different writing platforms over this one year. I have seen people climb up from the bottom to the top. I have seen them publish every day. I understand why it matters. You open your browser and you wish to find the name of your favorite writer in the latest. A cup of hot Coorgy Coffee goes well with a sharply sketched-out musing.

I explore assorted writing styles. I am getting more ravenous every day. I like variety. I like styles. I know I am capable of more. I push myself.

I think I have improved. I write faster. My articles and stories have a better flow. The end is conclusive. Instead of guiding from the side, I jump in and fight.

I count the number of words I have written. Sometimes I think that I don’t know a word and that I would find it in the dictionary. But it comes out on its own. And I gape as I wasn’t aware that I held the word in a silent corner of my mind. My unconscious was guiding the conscious.

I have started trusting my intuition more than ever.

I am excited with day-to-day life. When I was working for a corporate firm, even getting out of bed was tough. What was the meaning of that one code change that moved the submit button a little to the right? What was the purpose of changing the database when the old one was fine? What was the gain from the hedge fund analysis when the holders were already rich? And the new profit wouldn’t still satisfy them.

The banter and the conversations were what excited me. The thought of leaving the office to go back to a cup of ginger tea and cooking with Kishore Kumar in the background while the rain dripped on the windowpanes elevated me. Lying down in my bed under a milky-white silk duvet with Letters to a Young Poet in my hand made me smile.

Also Read: Why you should start over

And now every day is a new adventure. I wake up anxious, but also content. I wake up feeling delayed but also progressed. I wake up feeling responsible, but also free.

As if all the pores of my body are now open and can suck air abundantly. As if I can peel every emotion to its lowermost layer. As if I can rationalize every thought into a holistic idea.

Every day is new learning. Every day is a new dive. Every day is a new nuance. Every day is a new flight.

Every day is a new challenge. But every day is also one tiny step further.

And as I get ready and wear my golden skirt and black top and my maroon stone necklace and then a longer wooden fish one and then a metallic beetle one and I kohl my eyes and I paint my lips red and I make my hair and let them fall free and I warm a cup of ginger tea and look at my reflection in the mirror — I feel alive.

I feel alive. I feel alive.

I don’t know what the future would bring. But I know I would enjoy the ride. I would fall many times but I would pick myself up.

I have started to love this anxiety.

A longing in my eyes to do something has turned into a glint of an ongoing process.

Suggested Read: 12 Principles to achieve your goals

I don these bright colors and curious trinkets as they represent fragments of my own mind: a mosaic of everything bright and sullen and dull and happy and new and old. And it is trying to paint itself on paper in black.

Black words. Black words.

They might be black but they are everything more than that blackness. The shades they carry. The meaning they fly with.

I couldn’t be happier that I chose to write. As if I have got a new life. A challenging one but what else could it be?

What’s better than words? What’s better than being able to express what you think? To be able to understand the other. That’s the greatest human gift. A combined vision. A capability of creating fiction and stories. Isn’t that’s what allowed humans to grow much and rule the planet? And I get my hands dirty with the same skill.

I am more than fortunate. Jumping up and falling low.

And then I get an email from a reader. That she understood what I wrote. That she appreciates my writing. And that it has helped her.

And I breathe.

It has helped her. It has helped her. It has helped her.

That’s all I can think.

And then I go back to scribbling these black words. On this black and white screen.

But in the blackness I see colors. And hues. More gorgeous than anything I have ever seen.

In the stillness of the screen, I see life. More exciting than it had ever been.

Rising from the bland screen, a fragrance wafts into my face. Sweet as cinnamon. Fresh as jasmine. Pure as a rose.

And I breathe. And I write.

I smile. And I live.

And I tell myself, that this is just the beginning.

Suggested Read: Practical writing tips for beginner writers and My best Advice for new bloggers

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Have you wanted to start something for a while? What is stopping you?