It is tough, but fun!

So it isn’t just few pens and papers that you need with a creative mind to write up a novel. It’s more!!! Writing an article, just a blog post is not that difficult than writing up a story. For writing a story apart from the creative brain of yours you need to have a really good memory. No writer writes a long story in one day. They need coffee breaks, lunch breaks, few other bank works, some domestic work and again in front of the computer continuing the writing.

As a reader, we can read a book in an hour or so. But writing the same book takes days, months and sometimes even years. Just writing the novel isn’t going to give all the money required to the writer. The writer might be earning by writing articles for some magazine or teaching at the local college or even working in a corporate or may be the writer is just a person who is retired or a house wife. In all these cases, the writer has ample of work to do apart from writing.

There are people who think: “what does it take to be a writer? Anyone can write!” writing isn’t about just writing essays for your school exam. It is more than that. While writing a story you need to have a good memory. You need to remember what happened with your characters, the last time you wrote it. The first thing you need to keep in mind while writing your own story is your characters. You should know your characters, because if you don’t know them, others won’t know them!

You are the one who set up your own story characters. So you should know what your own characters are. There are minute things about you characters like allergies, looks, taste in lovers, food they eat etc. I know this sounds insane but this is the way things work for me. My character has always been Maya. I am just obsessed with the name for reasons unknown to me.

I have tried different names for different short stories but my fingers never moved further and those stories are still incomplete. Luckily all of these were short stories. So when I decided to write a STORY called The Runaway Writer, I made it clear to myself that the name would be Maya.

I know this sounds insane, like knowing your characters well, but yes they need to be your friend and enemy as per the story outline. But as we say, you should know your limits. Too much into your character may lead to Schizophrenia. You certainly don’t want that to happen, but yes knowing your character and having a good memory will give you the pleasure sooner or later that: “Yes I have written my own story!”

So writing isn’t a tough job? Ahh trust me its fun to work with this toughness. Another thing that I have experienced myself is, ‘never mix your personal and your story life together.’ Never write your story as the character’s story unless you think that your life is as perfect and imperfect as it should be in the novels. I know people do write their own stories, but trust me in the end you’d feel more vulnerable (if it’s a sad one). My first ever short story was nothing but something that I, experienced, an experience that I will always remember. It was a ‘hit’ in my college, among friends, family. But because it was a short story and I just wrote on that one experience, even today at times I feel: “Has the story come to an end? Isn’t there anything more that could happen?” when you write your own story, more than the technical aspect what you consider is emotional aspects. It can be good and bad.

Maybe I’ll just try my hand on short stories again and jot down some personal experience with the help of my character Maya!

Till then just one thing in mind – be creative, have a good memory and love your characters before you write a story!

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