To be a writer,

Firstly, you need to realize that you're not a writer but an impostor. No, it doesn't matter that you write! Writers do not look like you, dress like you, or write where you do. They don't even smell like you. They are not you.

Secondly, make the choice. Does what you write always stay hidden in your notebook/ internet docs? What do you fear? To remain speculative and asking the what ifs? Or putting your work out and receiving criticism? Or worse, receiving neither harsh lessons nor praise?

So you choose to put your work out there…

Congratulations! Welcome aboard an overspilling ship. You wanted to be at the top, that's it? No, I don't mean to discourage you, take your first step. Don't think about how unique you can make your work. Your young adult romance book is fantastic. Submit your work and they'll publish it.

(Hopefully)

Will it be difficult? - Could be. It's only three editorial, one commitorial, checks away. Wait for it. Or maybe you have stacks of cash and would like to skip half a year of suspenseful wait and publish your book yourself! You do? Come right away then, but first, hand me the cash. Good. And now here is the dead library of self-published books. Your self-published book will adore one of the front rows. Great isn't it? But it's self-published, so you're still not a writer, remember that!

Thirdly, be ready to face all anguish and panic during sleepless nights while you are slowly crushed by the existential dread of the realization that nothing you've written or will ever write shall survive or be remembered after you die. (It possibly won't be remembered even while you are alive)

I know - I know, you love literature because it's timeless but before you build yourself a statue and engrave it with something like 'My name is XYZ, Author of the Greatest Book Ever; Look upon my Works, ye Mighty and Despair!' and make a total fool of yourself…I'd like to remind you - you're not Homer whose works will survive two millennia! You're not Ovid, or Sophocles to be taught! You're not Shakespeare to be played about.

You are you! And you are not a writer.

Fourthly, develop a split personality.

On one hand, consider your work the finest. The best. The most pristine of all. Shoo away the sinful miscreants of classical literature, and kick the asses of modern classics, they write and have written with terrible ignorance. The world of literature is collapsing. But not under your watch! As long as you are alive, it shall not pass. Whatever you write (after the manuscript moves ahead of the second line obviously) once read, will make people aware of what blunder they previously acknowledged.

And on the other, watch as the very same writers you call beggars finish their writings and slowly climb their way to the top. Watch them as you grit your teeth and envy them. Cry rageful tears, scream and tear your hair apart and then finally remember where you stand. Below them. Their spit materializes on your face and eventually, you recede to curse yourself through nights and nights on end.

But hey! Let your other personality take hold of you right then. You're superior to others. Don't give up as of yet. After all, the manuscript is yet to be done.

Fifthly, convulse in pain when nobody appreciates your work. Even when you hand it over to them and they read it half-heartedly. They've got much more interesting stuff to entertain them. What's that you've written? A long philosophical poem questioning the fruits of labour? Do you think this is stimulating? Where are the colours? I-I have to imagine it? And excuse me, you're a poet? All this time you've been?? Sorry, but we don't have room for poets on this ship.

You may… join the half drowning boat, I'll join you there.

Finally, at last. If you've been through these stages and still want to be a writer? A fire is sure to break out from your heart and it shall engulf you and set ablaze your mind and your chest. You'll feel as if you'll burst if you don't write, and if you do, you're sure to write until you've exhausted your creative juices and bent the pen. The dread doesn't matter, the appreciation is valued but isn't the most important aspect. You shall write and not compare. The others are not your enemies. You do not push them off the boat. They get their deserved shares and you get yours. However big or small.

You keep putting your mind to pen and pen to paper until the two lines turn thirteen and five paragraphs turn fifty, until fifty becomes one-fifth of your manuscript. You're not sure if it has the power to survive through a couple of years, much less a decade, or a century. Whether it will change one life, stir their hearts and bring about a change, one thing it certainly did was change you.

You are a writer now. You smell the same.

You edit your book and turn the manuscript in and it gets selected and published, just in time when you realize… Nobody reads books nowadays.

Persistence in Writing

Show up everyday,
Keep the anxieties at bay
You must do it, you have to do it,
Since you were so impertinent to imagine
That one day, you would be where you dream to be
That you'd be the person you'd like to be

With a profession that inspires you -
A storyteller,
A filmmaker,
A poet or a bard
With a portfolio so incredibly incredible that they award you with titles on your achievements,
Or lend you a star at the Walk of Fame
Or feature you on magazines
Adore you
Look up to you

Yet, when it's time to work hard for it, you don't show up.
You hide, you cower,
Are you frightened by the thought of failure,
Or are you numbed by inactivity,
Desolate with despair,
Paralyzed by restlessness
Perhaps the simple reason is that you don't actually want to be all that you imagined you'd like to be

Do you still believe that you have
What it takes
To reach the spotlight you so crave
At midnights
With awe on your face
How would it be if you actually tried

So show up everyday,
Write.
Overcome your inertia
Write so that the world may be filled with one more perspective on life.
A treasure unfathomably rich and wonderful.
Write so that even heaven harkens to the truth.
Your truth. The truth you conjure up with words scribbled on paper
Become God.
Create and destroy worlds, men, and imagination.
Become a mirror
Show the world,
Society's indignation

And if you feel that you cannot write,
Write anyways, so that literature may do what it has for millennia.
Write so that there may remain the hope that you inspire another storyteller to pick up their pen and give us an epic to read for the next 2000 years
Then perish
Like the rest
Or be immortal without the flesh