“So this is how it is,” I thought. “Time just slips away.”
― Haruki Murakami, Novelist as a Vocation
I can well understand this. He writes about how everyone has it in them to write a single piece of work – a book even, but to consistently get back to the paper and do this over and over again – that is the making of a writer. I found myself nodding and smiling at that.
While writing sagas, and series isn’t the same as writing a novel, and writing a novel isn’t the same as a novella or short story, and a short story isn’t the same as writing an article, and all of this is different from writing short bursts of poetry, or a truly honest sentence, there is one thing binding it all together. It is the search for the right words, the right phrasing, the right emotions, the right concepts, and the right flow, that is everything.
That is where the time goes. It slips away in building a life with memories worth writing about. It slips while thinking about writing. And it goes in the process of writing.
Many friends ask me why I write, and my answer has been – Because I want to, have to even sometimes – an idea lodges itself and rattles itself inside till it is released onto the paper, and once done, other ideas are able to take root.
🦌 Sometimes writing is a catharsis, other times a pleasure.
🦅 Sometimes it is inexplicably hard, and other times easy.
🐿️ Sometimes it is creative and wild, other times banal and plodding.
🐦 Sometimes it is a thankless pursuit, other times it is rewarding.
🦢 But in its very paradoxes lies its appeal, and for that I am eternally grateful.
Writing through Time
There is also a strange comfort in knowing that writing has been all of these things for centuries – from the humans who inscribed their thoughts into clay tablets, scrolls, to those who could do the same on paper, to those of us who take to pages on the internet. Scribes, quills, pens, typewriters, and keyboards all helping the human mind make sense of their limited time on this planet in wondrous ways.
I am constantly in awe of storytellers – the kind of writing that requires not just a fount of wisdom and ideas, but also an unrelenting combination of imagination and discipline.
How people write series, overarching stories, sagas spanning multiple threads, years and characters is stupendously inspiring. The ability to imagine, craft and execute is nothing short of miraculous. There are thousands of books being published every year, and that only means that many people are choosing to expand their energies in these constructive ways. How can there not be hope for humankind?
The time that slips away building all these fantastical works – is it not time savored by the writer, and then by the readers if they are able to immerse themselves in it? Is there a measure for that sort of time slipping by?
Nourish-n-Cherish 