Writer's Block

Insomnia is a great advantage for those who "suffer" from it. It means you get extra four to five hours a day [night]
to think. In several of those thinking hours, I have thought of writing novels for a living. Please do not laugh, I have written a book and co-authored another and both are publised by well-known publishers. So my thinking is not exactly kite flying.

And, at the end of the day writing a novel can not be that difficult, all you need a plot at the centre of several plots played out by some normal and abnormal characters: just as you see in real life, albeit with a lot of embellishments. At my age I have seen too many real plots unfolding and folding up in real life...

I also have a fairly good command of English [in any case once you have put together the skeleton of the book, smart editors do the rest]

What is a novel after all? a piece of life, a slice of our day to day existence: joys, pains, successes, failures, love, hate: A nice concoction of emotions.

Mind you it can be darn profitable too. Most successful novelists earn much more than ordinary salaried persons, get huge advance payments in "foreign exchange" and also get to go to fancy parties and are elegible to wear whatever they fancy at work. They also do not to have to commute to work leaving behind their kids with ayahs. And of course, "bitching" is not a crime but a part of the job description.

Little wonder therefore that I have toyed with the idea of become a novelist, a professional novelist, i mean and take by moral, physical, metaphysical and most important, fianacial life to a higher plane.

I have gone even as far as thinking a title, charting out a plot and even open a new word document to start the first line. The first line is important, in fact very important [remember the first line of lolita? Lolita would not be lolita without the first line]. Once you have the right first line, it's easy as breeze!

But I must confess, in spite of the desire, ability and the driving forces, I have never been able to write the first line of a novel. And, as i grow older, the chances are getting dimmer.

No no, please do not get me wrong: It is not because of my day job which keeps me in office till long. Nor is a the fact that I live alone and have to do my household chores, Nor is it because of any other reason. Believe you me I have all the reasons and skills and knowledge to write a novel.

As a non-starter novelist, I have spent long hours on why people do not write novels [or long stories]. Certainly, we have no dearth of literate and thinking people in our country.

After thinking long and hard, I have reached my conclusions: Most people do not write novels because facts are stranger than fiction. All of us know facts that are much stranger than fiction and it requires an inhuman capability to either fictionalise facts or turn fiction into fact. So all potential novelists like me are faced with this situation: What you can write is not even one third of what you know and what you know is not good, safe, sane, enough to write.

My take: For every successful novelist there are at least a thousand who could have written a much better novel of they have had the courage to jot down that proverbial first line.

keep trying folks..... the greatest novelist is one who writes what she experiences in life!