How to Spend Time with the Writer Inside?

I am writing after a long time. Mainly because I have been busy with stuff, but also because there was nothing meaningful for me to share.

But an engaging interaction with someone who is penning her first book the other day prompted me to write this post.

Pretty much 90 per cent of the people I have come across harbor a small, tiny desire to write one day. It doesn’t matter what, but they want to write. And essentially, when you want to write, it is nothing but your desire to share a bit of yourself. At least that’s what I feel. Yet out of those 90 per cent barely 0.5 per cent will ever put pen to paper. And the rest of the percentage will start but not finish. And you are going to laugh, but one of my editors, who is a well-known reputed editor with a top publishing house, confessed how she has never gone beyond 30 pages of her own book. Yet every day she is skimming through other people’s works.

This post is not about making you a better writer or helping you publish a book. I think OS has some wonderful writing challenges that are very motivating.

Instead, I thought I would share with all of you how I write, and maybe it can help all of you keep your date with your own author personality.

For the past few weeks, I have been sitting for sessions with a lady who is writing her first book. She is a spiritually awakened being and my role is to hear and help her modulate the structure of the book. It has been quite an engaging journey because her book is highly vibrationally very different from just writing a story, yet it is using a human apparatus to express. So the challenges are the same as anyone else would face. So the first challenge she faced was getting so much content into a space. But I met her last week and she was glowing and giggling like a teenager. And that’s why I am writing this post.  Will come back to that later.

Anyway, I often get asked this question by people of various age groups on how I write. And what should they do to write? Well, I make graphic novels so structurally, some things differ but at the crux of it some processes, like spending quality time with your author self, remain the same.

1. Have the intent to want to write. I am not talking about desire. That’s different, that’s the 90 per cent I had mentioned. The intent is different. When it is plain desire, you will come up with excuses. I am not good enough etc. Well, you will never know. And you will never get better because you never tried. Intent arises from within your heart. You will know it. The intent is powerful.
2. Almost everyone at my workshops or book sessions asks me how do we get published. You see, that’s a problematic Q. You have not created the path but you have reached the end game. I can tell you something, after writing enough stories, the truth is not everything will get published. Those are different logistics. In a country like India, where graphic novels are a rather niche genre. I have self-published, worked with publications which no one has ever heard of, and been rejected. Have massive pieces of work that will probably never see daylight (It doesn’t change anything for me. I love each work as much.) ,out of all the work two are by a mainstream publisher.  Two… 3 … yeah 3  books out of pages and pages of drawing and writing. You know how long it takes me to make a page. 5 hours. Yes 5, a regular writer will type 3 chapters by then.
3. And this is the game changer (It’s perfect to want to see your product get somewhere. I want my readers to read) but that’s not why I write. I would write and create even if no one would read. If you don’t think of the end you will learn to begin.
4. Sometimes we get brilliant ideas, they are all brilliant. Understand not all need to be part of the story. Some ideas are never used. I have seen far too many writers juggle great ideas and are unable to let go of any. As a result, there is nothing to say. As in life being an author is also about learning to let go.  I have another 100 pages of brilliant ideas, according to me, that will never be anything but scribbles in my book.
5. Have container times throughout the day or week, for when you write. It’s like meditation. If you skip you are not serious enough. And that is the bare truth. If you don’t meet your writer self, trust me no one else will be interested in meeting you either:))))
6. And finally, the last point is why  I started writing the post. My discussion with the above author I was talking about, she was glowing when I met her. I kid you not she was like a teenager in love. I asked her what was going on. She laughed, we both laughed because I knew what she was going to say… she said I am in love with the process of writing. I am allowing myself to be committed to it, and I am not worried about what and how it will be published. I am just committed.

And that is the truth, you need to be in love. I write every day, except for when I consciously take time off. If you are in love, it’s not work.  It’s not even about your ambition, your desire to be read. Everything is secondary, but the fact that you are in love with writing. I never miss a day when I don’t have a date with my author self.

If you are one of those people who have an author sitting and waiting patiently, well, go so hello, my friend.