Adventures of a First-Time Writer

chillibreeze writer — Seema Sali

I have always wanted to be a writer. I have been an avid reader since childhood and I used to marvel at the way writers told stories. Their imagination, the use of words, the flow of thoughts never stopped intriguing me.

With this burning desire alive at the back of my mind I completed my engineering, took up a job and got into the rigmarole of everyday life. Time and again this desire kept popping its head up. I could appease the same to a certain extent when I started developing content and manuals for training. However there was no satisfaction of being creative. The exercise of developing content and writing the manuals to run the programs seemed mechanical it was something that came more from thoughts than from heart, which left my heart longing for that amazing piece of literature which could give me the creative satisfaction. Hence I set forth to produce a masterpiece.

The dilemma started right at the beginning. What should I write about? Fiction, non-fiction, travelogue, exotic recipes, philosophy, humor? What, what, what? I finally settled for a fiction intending to produce ‘chick lit’ that would be a bestseller. Decision made, I started thinking of different ideas to work on, burning the midnight oil as well as calories (you see I used to skip lunch if an idea stuck me to spend some time working on it). Nothing proceeded beyond a couple of pages, how then could I produce a multi page bestseller? The smallest book I have read so far is Richard Bach’s ‘Jonathan Livingstone Seagull’, but that is philosophy. I seemed to be coming to my wits end. I spoke to some of my friends for an idea. One friend suggested I write something biographical to start with as I would be familiar with the subject and all I had to do was to dive in the past and keep writing about the incidents that happened.

I was all excited now. I locked myself in the room and started punching the keyboard furiously. By the end of two hours I was satisfied as I had gone beyond two pages and broken all my previous records. Ha!!!! Victory at last. Spurred by the initial success I went on. Told my dear husband and son “do not disturb, the genius is burning”. Finally after about six hours of effort and well past midnight I had completed almost my entire life story. I took a print and kept it on the dinning table thinking I would read it afresh along with my morning cuppa.

I slept well. Surprisingly even with only about five hours of sleep I was excited. I quickly freshened up, made myself a cup of strong coffee and settled in the living room with the first draft of my bestseller. I was proud of myself. Alas, all my excitement came crashing down in the next fifteen minutes. Why? It was one of the most boring pieces of writing I was reading. My life was plain without any of the excitement, romance, twists and turns of a bestseller. All my hard work had gone down the drain and I was now back to square one, a burning desire to write but no idea what to write about, where to begin and where to end? God! Someone please help me.

I must have been the most depressed soul walking the earth for the next two days. Slowly the work pressure got the better of me and by Friday the depression had worn away and I was brimming with new ideas. Friday post lunch I did some thinking. Here is what went on in my head. ‘Okay, so writing biographical stuff is easy. I need to write about something in my life which is interesting and fun. What part of my life could this be? Surely my days in the boarding school.’ Then I though about the books I had read in this category that were bestsellers. I could immediately think of the Harry Potter series. ‘That needs a lot of imagination. Let me think of others in this category. Well there is “Five Point Someone” by Chetan Bhagat, “Mediocre but Arrogant” by Abhijit Bhaduri and “How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild and Got a Life” by Kaavya Viswanathan.

Armed with the determination to make it this time, I finished an early dinner on Friday night and locked myself in the study. Hubby and sonny made fun of the writing genius. I ignored all and within a few minutes of locking myself in the study was earnestly working on the keyboard. I lost track of time, when I emerged out of the study I saw the two men sprawling on the sofa snoring away with the sound of the blaring TV providing a background score. I put the TV off and got into bed. This time I was sure I had made it. I had completed the introduction to my school and also the opening scene where the main protagonist had showed her spark. I thought I had done a good job.

In the morning I went around making breakfast and other routine chores with a big Cheshire cat-smile on my face. After lunch I got a printout of my handiwork and asked my son to comment as his generation would be my audience. As my son started reading I could see him breaking into a smile. My heart sang with joy. I had cracked the code. Within a few minutes his expression changed and I could see a frown on his face. He looked at me and saw my face; he would have guessed the anxiety in it. He said “Ma, I appreciate your effort, your description of the school is very vivid and captures attention. The girl in the story seems interesting too, but Ma, the kind of pranks she plays are out dated. No kids in schools play such pranks any more. This book is suitable for your generation but will not gel well with mine, who is your reader. You will need to go back to school – go get current.”

My heart sank. I can never be a writer. As of now I have decided to restrict myself to my training content and the training manuals. Till the writer’s bug bites again.

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—About our writer:

Seema says, "An engineer by qualification and a trainer by profession, I love reading, adventure, trekking and farming. I like taking up challenges and risks. Enjoy cracking PJs and spreading laughter and joy."

Adventures of a First-Time Writer

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