Writing that novel

As someone who loves to write, I know the struggle is real. I have stopped telling people that I want to be a writer. I have perhaps, stopped believing in my ability to do that.

To someone who is in the same state of mind, I will say what I wish to be told.

Begin. Maybe you’ll write a really bad paragraph today. But the fear of failure should not keep you from beginning. Anything that was ever done had a start. And so should your poem or your novel.

We begin with errors and it is important to make mistakes. Nobody wrote the perfect short story in one sitting.

Sometimes it took background check, a bit of research, the dictionary, criticism, feedback and many drafts to make it self sufficient. If you wish to learn, the journey begins with doubting yourself and trying in spite of that.

And then you read. You read anything that comes your way- the editorial, the content description on a product, a love story, not so popular works by other aspiring writers, the classics: anything.

To write that novel, maybe today you simply have to list the characters and nothing more: as little as names on a list. At least begin somewhere.

Sit down and think. Think and write.

The Scarlet Letter

Here, I shall be sharing excerpts from the text of the books I’d be currently reading. These excerpts will be shared when they interest me, give me an insight into the writer’s mind or a peek into the contemporary society
Basically, these extracts shall have something to say.

Here goes the first one. I just began Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter.

“The room itself is cobwebbed, and dingy with old paint; its floor is strewn with grey sand, in a fashion that has elsewhere fallen into long disuse; and it is easy to conclude, from the general slovenliness of the place, that this is a sanctuary into which womankind, with her tools of magic, the broom and mop, has very infrequent access. “

Books

When you start reading a great book, its contours start realigning themselves with your imagination.
The spaces between the pause that jumps from one chapter to the next, they are filled with your essence.
And no two people ever would imagine a book in the same way: using exact pastels and brush strokes.
And that is why when you finish a book, you are left with a loss. You know you have lost something because when you read it again, it will never be the same. The experience might be better, but you will read it in a new light altogether. 
We love to cradle our books to sleep in the hope, that we’d maybe dream about it and that shall be the only manageably close encounter we could ever have with the characters, and the story.
And sometimes, we just hold a book close to our heart and cry. 
Writers, have a task at hand. They definitely need to write about what they picture but there should also be a peephole into the scene the key to which is with the reader. We become, the faceless people inside.
I am that woman, who silently resigns to Kent, Baker Street or Wuthering Heights like an unacknowledged presence: an intruder.
This must be the reason why we relish looking into the ordinary lives of men and women through a tiny peephole. These people, perhaps I’d come across them at a dance or a protest, these people are dull, drab and lead non existent lives.
But the excitement of eavesdropping on their most intimate conversations, that keeps us going.
And we might come off as a stock character, after reading a book, we grow, like the protagonist in it grows out of the mould he was cast in and becomes someone else. It is more like the writer, took me up as a character to influence by the force of the story she weaves.