I am not a writer. Not anymore. I used to be. Filled pages and pages with worthless drabble. I remember those days. Pissed my dad off quite a bit. Those annual diaries were gifts and not to be used for dreamy scribbles. Ration, monthly lists, bank accounts. Those were the practical matters that were to be held within the lined pages.
I don't do that anymore. Well, if I am honest, I still type out words every day. Like a machine. On a machine. I do about 1000 words, I suppose. Give or take. That is a job. It pays. I can't complain. Although my father thinks it does not pay as much. My mother is more worried that it keeps me up at night. She does not know the nights have nothing to do with the job. I just can't sleep.
This is new for me. The writing, I mean. Technically, I am still typing. Not writing. Little mercies, I suppose. My handwriting would be as chaotic as my thoughts, I suppose. I suppose. That is all I do these days. Supposing things that never happened, if they happened, could they happen, and making them happen in the mind. I am good at stitching together imaginary events that way. It helps take my mind off what I have to write.
Like I said, I am not a writer. If I were, I would not have wasted so many words on nothing. It takes a special talent to describe nothing, while pretending to describe something. My editor calls it 'lazy writing'. That would be a compliment. This is just a ramble. A rambling on nothing.
I don't know what I am doing. Or what I was supposed to do. 'Supposed' to. I suppose I was trying to write about what I am feeling. I can't seem to find the words for it. That, in a nutshell, has been my problem. That's why I keep repeating it. I am not a writer.
Why do I keep repeating it? No one is going to read this. And I already know it. But there it is. Recorded for posterity. The good that men do is oft-forgotten, was it? Maybe, once. Now, it is recorded for eternity on invisible digiverses. So, here it is again, for the ordinary Indian bureaucrat, sitting behind his desk, drinking his fourth cup of coffee today, reading the latest blog coming out of the country. I am not a writer.
Maybe I am lying to myself. Lying to escape the work this involves. If nothing, it promises delirious amounts of work. And work that might amount to nothing. No cheque waiting at the end of the last punctuation mark. So I will not be a writer. No, the tense is all wrong with that sentence. I am not a writer.
I am not a writer. But I want to be. I wish I could be. Maybe. I don't know. I am not a writer.
I don't do that anymore. Well, if I am honest, I still type out words every day. Like a machine. On a machine. I do about 1000 words, I suppose. Give or take. That is a job. It pays. I can't complain. Although my father thinks it does not pay as much. My mother is more worried that it keeps me up at night. She does not know the nights have nothing to do with the job. I just can't sleep.
This is new for me. The writing, I mean. Technically, I am still typing. Not writing. Little mercies, I suppose. My handwriting would be as chaotic as my thoughts, I suppose. I suppose. That is all I do these days. Supposing things that never happened, if they happened, could they happen, and making them happen in the mind. I am good at stitching together imaginary events that way. It helps take my mind off what I have to write.
Like I said, I am not a writer. If I were, I would not have wasted so many words on nothing. It takes a special talent to describe nothing, while pretending to describe something. My editor calls it 'lazy writing'. That would be a compliment. This is just a ramble. A rambling on nothing.
I don't know what I am doing. Or what I was supposed to do. 'Supposed' to. I suppose I was trying to write about what I am feeling. I can't seem to find the words for it. That, in a nutshell, has been my problem. That's why I keep repeating it. I am not a writer.
Why do I keep repeating it? No one is going to read this. And I already know it. But there it is. Recorded for posterity. The good that men do is oft-forgotten, was it? Maybe, once. Now, it is recorded for eternity on invisible digiverses. So, here it is again, for the ordinary Indian bureaucrat, sitting behind his desk, drinking his fourth cup of coffee today, reading the latest blog coming out of the country. I am not a writer.
Maybe I am lying to myself. Lying to escape the work this involves. If nothing, it promises delirious amounts of work. And work that might amount to nothing. No cheque waiting at the end of the last punctuation mark. So I will not be a writer. No, the tense is all wrong with that sentence. I am not a writer.
I am not a writer. But I want to be. I wish I could be. Maybe. I don't know. I am not a writer.
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