A Room Of One's Own

Of all channels of expression, one channel that brings out the best in me is writing! I most certainly articulate myself better when I write. What I can’t say, I do it with ease when I write.

Writing is a writer’s rendition of what he perceives, thinks, feels and believes. It could be poetry, drama, novel, epic, plays, essays, short stories and now might I add blogging also. Francis Bacon, the immortal essayist, in who the idea of an essay found genesis mentioned in one of his prolific essays: “Of Studies” that “Writing makes a man perfect”. This is true though we perhaps overlook it. When we read, we might not absorb; but when we write, it is ingrained in our minds. An example one can most likely relate to is spellings of words. English comes with its own idiosyncrasies of rules and it is fraught with more exceptions than rules. When asked to spell an intricate word, all of us can’t get it right until we do a simulation of writing by groping our fingers on a table or any surface near to us.

What is already written I can refine and edit but it reaches the pinnacle when I witness an event/experience and thereby translate it into words in solitude. Isolation
from the world is must for me and for that matter a writer also. Solitude inspires a poet to write better as s/he locks the World out. Wordsworth meant what he stated in his famous lyrical Ballads:” Poetry is a spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings and emotions recollected in tranquility”.
It is only when one is at peace with the mind; one can do justice to poetry and other genres of writing. In his timeless poem “Daffodils”, Wordsworth concludes
“For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with daffodils.”
Here it is tacit that the sight of Daffodils flits across in his mind’s eye, when in seclusion from the World.

To satiate the feminist in me, I have to quote Virginia Woolf who postulated a nugget of truth in her prose “A Room of One’s Own” She quips “A woman needs a room of ones own and 500 pound’s a year to write fiction”. This was written way back in the 19th century when women were snubbed behind the four walls of a Kitchen and education was a distant dream. She was one in a thousand women who had access to education because of her educated parents who encouraged education of a girl child.

Even an inkling of sound or commotion can hamper the flow of thought. Writing just doesn’t happen out-of-nowhere. An uninhibited thought process is the key to good writing. I cannot write about things I hold disdain for, yet I can write if my angst for things I dislike merits writing! Now that’s SCHIZOPRHENIA. The other day my Professor was saying that we all have split personalities. Will deliberate that at length sometime later. As s/he grows and hones skills a writer must also fine tune his/her mind to look at things differently. Why should the reader read your Story? They are multitudes who can write. But what sets you apart from the rest? This is the Question a writer should ask oneself!

This Post is getting longer and I can just go on and on…

Do not be surprised at my macabre love for writing as it is this that keeps me alive and going!