Late last night, I finally gave up on a story I was trying to complete for last 5 days. It was something I really enjoyed writing when I started, it started pretty well with a nice flow, a generous sprinkle of wit, humour and spontaneity of moments and a gradual build up the way I like.
So why did I delete it then? Because my story had lost its soul. Every piece of writing that claims to be real has a soul just like everything else which is real. And moment that’s gone, all we are left with are pretty but plastic creations.
When I began writing, I was working on a vague idea I was carrying. I thought let me build up the story and in time that idea would crystallize and I’ll have my end. But the idea never crystallized, rather it evaporated and all I was left with was a collection of words which impressed me but didn’t inspire me. For last few days, every time I struggled with the end I re-read those 3000 words and every time I read them I fell in love with what I had written. And obsession reached such a state that last night I almost zeroed in on a hackneyed end just for the sake of completing the story and at that moment I realized how futile my whole struggle is.
It was as if, some distant but dear relative of a guy is dying, doctors have told the guy that it’s just a matter of few days and nothing more could be done. So to show his love & respect, this guy gets a beautiful and splendid coffin made for his relative’s last journey. But doctors being doctors, they were proved wrong, and the distant relative recovered and survived. But our poor guy was in so much in love with the splendid coffin he had got made that he went around the whole neighbourhood asking people if someone 5’7” and not too fat would be dying in their households because he has this great coffin waiting for them. Love for the relative has long gone, its love for the coffin that’s left.
Ridiculous right !!!
That’s exactly what I felt when I went around looking for an end just so that a collection of words which seemed good to me can call itself a story. So I read the whole thing again dispassionately, looking beyond words and clever conversations. And then I realized how life less my story had become, frankly its spirit had long died and I was just carrying the corpse.
Sometimes we get so consumed by our creations that the spirit within us which inspired us get dwarfed. And it not only happens with creativity, it happens when diligence gets dwarfed against success that it has brought, it happens when learning gets dwarfed against adulation that it heralded and it happens when what we want gets dwarfed against what is expected of us.
But late last night, I didn’t let it happen and just for this once I don’t mind giving up.
So why did I delete it then? Because my story had lost its soul. Every piece of writing that claims to be real has a soul just like everything else which is real. And moment that’s gone, all we are left with are pretty but plastic creations.
When I began writing, I was working on a vague idea I was carrying. I thought let me build up the story and in time that idea would crystallize and I’ll have my end. But the idea never crystallized, rather it evaporated and all I was left with was a collection of words which impressed me but didn’t inspire me. For last few days, every time I struggled with the end I re-read those 3000 words and every time I read them I fell in love with what I had written. And obsession reached such a state that last night I almost zeroed in on a hackneyed end just for the sake of completing the story and at that moment I realized how futile my whole struggle is.
It was as if, some distant but dear relative of a guy is dying, doctors have told the guy that it’s just a matter of few days and nothing more could be done. So to show his love & respect, this guy gets a beautiful and splendid coffin made for his relative’s last journey. But doctors being doctors, they were proved wrong, and the distant relative recovered and survived. But our poor guy was in so much in love with the splendid coffin he had got made that he went around the whole neighbourhood asking people if someone 5’7” and not too fat would be dying in their households because he has this great coffin waiting for them. Love for the relative has long gone, its love for the coffin that’s left.
Ridiculous right !!!
That’s exactly what I felt when I went around looking for an end just so that a collection of words which seemed good to me can call itself a story. So I read the whole thing again dispassionately, looking beyond words and clever conversations. And then I realized how life less my story had become, frankly its spirit had long died and I was just carrying the corpse.
Sometimes we get so consumed by our creations that the spirit within us which inspired us get dwarfed. And it not only happens with creativity, it happens when diligence gets dwarfed against success that it has brought, it happens when learning gets dwarfed against adulation that it heralded and it happens when what we want gets dwarfed against what is expected of us.
But late last night, I didn’t let it happen and just for this once I don’t mind giving up.
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