I am thirteen books into writing now or fourteen or fifteen or sixteen depending on how I look at it.
Plus I have tonnes of published material and uncollected material etcetera lying around. Of my books, "Art of Poetry," the most popular one that I had a hundred copies of, has only two copies left (I think) and "The Significant Anthology," edited by me, Reena Prasad and Michele Baron has also sold out its first edition. "Wake Up, India: Essays for our Times," that was co -authored with Dr Bina Biswas sells. My first officially published solo collection of poems "Allusions to Simplicity" is also selling.
However it is time to think, not of taking a break from writing but of where it is all heading. Have quit at the peak of my game just when it is beginning to pay off as writing needs not just one being prolific but one being quality conscious too, eventually. My books so far were all above average and not mediocre, according to me, but that is not enough for me, as I desire something more.
I am working on an anthology of short stories, along with Michele Baron, and my own collection of short stories and a long poem with notes next, as well as planning to collect all my published and unpublished stuff and perhaps revamp and re-edit what has already been brought out. These are ambitious plans and time may not permit it.
I came across several or many prolific writers on Facebook, like Neelam Saxena Chandra, Mahesh Dattani, Chitra Lele, Dr Santosh Bakaya, Santosh Alex as a translator, Dr Bina Biswas, Dr Sayantan Gupta, Pramila Khadun and many others, all with books running into more than ten or many to their names, anyway.
I recently read an article that says it is the one who collects rejections most and/or who writes prolifically who becomes good. There is some truth in this.
I also read one on Bad Writing and some sentences struck me particularly.
"Bad writing is almost always a love poem addressed by the self to the self. The person who will admire it first and last and most is the writer herself."
"...good writing is a way of making the self as vulnerable as possible."
"Conversely, bad writers often write in order to forward a cause or enlarge other people’s understanding of a contemporary social issue. Any attempt to write fiction in order to make the world a better, fairer place is almost certain to fail. Holding any value as more important than learning to be a good writer is dangerous. Put very simply, your characters must be alive before they seek justice."
"To go from being a competent writer to being a great writer, I think you have to risk being – or risk being seen as – a bad writer. Competence is deadly because it prevents the writer risking the humiliation that they will need to risk before they pass beyond competence. To write competently is to do a few magic tricks for friends and family; to write well is to run away to join the circus."
"Your friends and family will love your tricks, because they love you. But try busking those tricks on the street. Try busking them alongside a magician who has been doing it for 10 years, earning their living. When they are watching a magician, people don’t want to say, “Well done.” They want to say, “Wow.”
Writing on Facebook for so many years has both helped me and hindered me, by making me both raise my standards in one sense, the competitive one of trying to create or carve a niche for myself, and drop them in another sense, in the one of being forced to be nice to writers who are often only novices and beginners as part of my teaching approach, from doing what I love most in life and do well, it also being the only thing I know how to do in a way, which is to write.
Taking a break from it, meaning writing on Facebook, will help me to focus on what I really do again which is to write properly till I burn out and produce something great on the way that others will not willingly let die.
The quotes are from:
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/may/20/what-makes-bad-writing-bad-toby-litt
I have been critic, collaborator, poet, editor, co-editor, anthologist, compiler, co-author, writer, author, book maker, book producer - and so many more things in such a short time but am still dissatisfied as I have evaded the main question which is of how to be all this in such a way that I am not one of the better writers just because we live in a mediocre age but as my writing is truly timeless and universal. Blogging is probably the way out as here with no audience I can write what I want, and re-invent myself, relearn, keep learning. That is the way forward.
There are other questions to tackle too. Should I be a critic or a poet or both? These are my strengths, and in that order. Explore fiction and drama too? I feel these issues sort themselves out naturally. The challenge for me is fiction, the short story and the novel and the novella or novelette.
Or should I work for autism and at encouraging other writers to come up, especially not forgetting ones in my own family. And my friends. And what about spirituality and my job?
It is all worth thinking about.
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