To write, in a world full of content
How I rediscovered my passion for writing
The earliest thing I remember writing on paper was my very own fairytale, somewhere in the 6th or 7th grade. I started writing stories in my head even before that. Safe to say, writing is a major part of my identity.
But the question that constantly keeps me up in the middle of the night is if it’s meant to be a part of who I am. I write, I always have, but what does it mean for me to write? And the bigger question, what does it mean, for me, to write in a world with too much content, where everyone has a story to tell?
Most people I know write today, be it in the form of a fiction novel, or funny captions on Instagram or lengthy posts on LinkedIn. A decade back, in high school, I was one of the only people in my class who wrote anything in any form (most of them a teenager’s attempts at writing the next big YA novel) and it was a big deal.
Since then, my relationship with writing has had its ups and downs. I have tried my hand at poetry, multiple unfinished novels, blogs and fanfiction. I have written across multiple platforms, online and offline. Since then, the world has also exploded with everyone becoming a creator, a writer, an artist.
I’m not complaining, everyone has a right to express who they are, in whatever form they see fit. But it does lead one to questioning your own work.
So in a world which has too many things happening, and millions of bytes of information coming your way at any single point, what does it mean to write?
The answer to this question that has bothered me the past few years, came to me recently on a cold December night in the form of a video. I was watching a lecture series by Brandon Sanderson, on writing fantasy and science fiction. I set out to watch them because of my love for fantasy and Sanderson alike, but the solution to my writing dilemma came from there, unexpectedly.
In the introduction video, Sanderson spoke about how one doesn’t have to be a best selling author to be a writer. One would think that was obvious, but it is something many of us tend to forget. Not just that, what resonated with me the most was when he spoke about how his friends from his literature student days still pursued their passion for writing, despite not always having published their works or sold a million copies. To them, writing was about who they were and what they were trying to express through their work, not about fame or mere numbers.
It took me back to the time I wrote that fairy tale, when I was not worried about who would read it or how big it would get, all I wanted was to put together the story in my head in the form of words. I still read that fairy tale now and then, and it still feels good every time I read it.
I will always aspire to be a best-selling author, but first, to write means to focus on my art, and not the end results.
So to write, now and always, has been about me and never about others. And I’ve realized, therein lies the answer.
