In my humble, nothing-great-achieved-in-writing opinion, what you need to have to be a good writer is a keen sense of observation of people and things. Even if you lack the imagination to present your observations in a Pulitzer-worthy way, the observation itself is sometimes enough. Of course, if you have insight and presentation skills, that's just the icing on the cake.
Trust me, not everyone pays attention to what they observe. It is
the reason why standup comedians are thriving. They observe what you and I do,
but they make diligent notes of it maybe and present it humorously. They are
essentially making us laugh at things we have seen all the time but failed to
analyze and interpret. We have missed seeing the irony in our observations.
I am reading short stories by the very talented K. A. Abbas. The
stories are so touching because they are about people and their circumstances,
their thinking, their plight, and how they get by in life or to death. In
reading his stories, I feel this
author par excellence must have been exposed to
people from every walk of life, and he must have embraced knowing them without any
reservations. That is why perhaps his stories that pay no heed to the writing
maxim, "show. don't tell" are still highly engaging. Each time I
read about a character and their quirks and thoughts, I am fascinated and do not
put the book down. He is also clever in his
arrangement of information and
building a crescendo, weaving in irony, and sometimes merely stating the story of
their life without any sentimentality. He leaves the sentimentality to unsuspecting readers like me. My emotions range from chuckling to feeling sad to feeling like I was punched in the stomach. Like I said, icing on cake material his prose
is.
Among other things, God has blessed us with an inexhaustible
source of stories by infusing so much variety in humans and unpredictability in
life. One more reason to be grateful for. However, of late, I just feel
very averse and lazy to write a story. Simply because it is a lot of work and let's say I'm
just very content consuming other people's works. I also feel happier when I am
not "trying to be a writer".
When I do write, I am more of a pantser than I realize. A pantser is someone who writes
without a detailed outline, allowing the story to develop organically. The term 'pantser' is derived from
the phrase "flying by the seat of your pants".
Writing discipline to meet a stipulated word count every day and
diligently plotting every single detail of a story fatigues me. It makes my
writing groan with overthought and overworked ideas.
I am also a deep believer in Deepak Chopra’s seven spiritual laws of
success. The law of least effort has been an unwitting life motto.
Below is an excerpt from his book, The Seven Spiritual Laws of
Success …
The fourth spiritual law of success is the Law of Least Effort.
This law is based on the
fact that nature’s intelligence
functions with effortless ease and abandoned carefulness. This is
the principle of least action, of no resistance. This is,
therefore, the principle of harmony and love. When we learn this lesson from
nature, we easily fulfill our desires. If you observe nature at
work, you will see that least effort is expended. Grass doesn’t try to grow, it just
grows. Fish don’t try to swim, they just swim. Flowers don’t try to bloom, they bloom.
Birds don’t try to fly, they fly. This is their intrinsic nature. The Earth doesn’t
try to spin on its own axis; it is the nature of the Earth to spin with
dizzying speed and to hurtle through space. It is the nature of babies to be in
bliss. It is the nature of the sun to shine. It is the nature of the stars to
glitter and sparkle. And it is human nature to make our dreams manifest into
physical form, easily and effortlessly. In Vedic Science, the
age-old philosophy of India, this principle is known as the principle of
economy of effort, or do less and accomplish more. Ultimately you come
to the state where you do nothing and accomplish everything. This means
that there is just a faint idea, and then the manifestation of the idea comes
about effortlessly. What is commonly called a ‘miracle’ is actually an
expression of the Law of Least Effort.
Disclaimer time: Not for
a nanosecond do I posit that doing anything aimlessly will
guarantee success. But nor will chasing your tail. All I believe is I
will not stress myself over it. The only thing that came out of stress was
wrong actions. (And is succeeding so important? Let’s save that for another day…)
I will write from a place of love for my thoughts and not from the need to excel or achieve a goal. With that resolution in place, I write more often
now and strangely, I have readers. Deep gratitude but I did not aim for either…
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