On Writing

It has been another long and dreary week. Work has kept me busy for the most part. So much so that I might have to put in a few hours over the weekend. I am not exactly complaining. Before, I might have had other things to do, but with the way the world is, staying home seems to be the right, and the responsible thing to do. I think, maybe I should turn in early Friday night, when I am reminded that I need to submit my entry toward the Tall Tales Story Challenge.

What activity makes you feel the most alive and why, the prompt reads. Here’s the thing. This is not a feeling I am quite familiar with, feeling alive. My life, nay, existence is like the reading on a heart rate monitor hooked up to someone in a hospital bed. No, not flush with ups and downs; I’m referring to the part that comes after the person has checked out. Flatline. Not going to blame the pandemic, or the lockdowns that came with it. Life has, for the most part, been this way, and you could say I’ve almost grown comfortable with it.

When was the last time I truly felt alive? Was it, perhaps, when I was doing twenty over the speed limit on an interstate, my eyes darting all around, watching out for a cop car? Or maybe, when I was at the peak of a roller coaster’s lift hill, waiting for it to start thundering down? Not quite. Those moments were exciting, exhilarating even, but they were just that — moments. Ephemera. An involuntary reaction to adrenaline flooding my system. As I ponder over this question, realization slowly dawns in me. The answer is, quite literally, at my fingertips.

I’ve been writing for quite a while now. Stories, mostly. As a kid, I used to spin yarns in old notebooks. Weird, outlandish tales. Childish horror, alien invasions, the rise and fall of kingdoms of legend. And then, it became a task. Writing letters to the editor and newspaper articles in my English exams at school. I still did my due diligence, and every now and then, when I was really in the mood, I’d go the extra mile and wax poetic. So much so that there were times the teacher would remark favorably upon my work. I remember telling her once that it was whimsical, that I needed to ‘feel’ like it, to really give it my best.

Perhaps that’s why I gave up on writing for a long time. I went through my own personal version of writer’s block in college, where I’d start pieces, but never finish them. The mere attempt to write would leave me drained. And then, a few years later, I stumbled upon a short story contest, and thought I’d give it a go. A dark, twisted tale was what I came up with, much to the surprise of my family, and my own self. I didn’t realize I still had it in me, that ability to tell a story. That felt good.

I did not win the contest, but something better happened. This attempt seemed to open the floodgates. Stories that I had carried within over the years now found their way on to paper (or the screen, if we’re being pedantic).

There would be days, where one seemed no different than the rest. Work, eat, sleep, repeat. The numbing drone of millennial yuppie adulthood. And then, a story would come to me, unbidden. A thought. An image. That’s all it would take. I would then flesh it out, worrying at it at odd moments, until one night, I would sit down, vowing to get it all out. Thus, what would otherwise have been just another day (SSDD, to borrow a phrase from Stephen King) in a seemingly infinite progression would now seem a little brighter.

Here’s the thing about writing stories — I’m not alive just in my own self. I live the lives of others. It is an exercise in imagination and empathy, to put myself in the shoes of someone I’ve never been, and sometimes never will be. A young man confessing his feelings to someone he’s loved for years, in secret and in silence. A brother who regrettably had to kill his own, for there was no other way. A mad scientist bending the laws of nature in his laboratory. A time traveler tasked with killing baby Hitler. I have lived all these lives, and more.

It is not enough just to get the feelings and emotions right. A story needs form and structure. I sometimes know where it begins, and how it ought to end, but the middle eludes me. This is an arduous process, debating and bargaining with myself, wondering how to make it work. Then comes the semantics. There are times I’ve been at my wits’ end, poring over a phrase, a single word, just because it didn’t sit right with me.

Then, after all the hair pulling and hand wringing, I have it. A story fully written. It is now mine to share with the world. Every like, every comment is a little bit of appreciation. Of course, I believe that one shouldn’t write just for the sake of external validation, but it does go a long way. There have been moments when someone I know asks if I wasn’t writing, that it had been a long time since they’d seen me post anything. Makes me wonder if that qualifies me as a writer.

But it’s not always about others, is it? Writing is a terribly personal and solitary pursuit. I must say, some of my best works are pieces that have not been seen by eyes other than my own, and most likely never will be. Words I had to pour out when there was nowhere else I could take them. Words that I still sometimes read, and wonder how different things had been when I penned them. They say that pictures capture memories; a moment in time, frozen. It is also said that a picture is worth a thousand words. Some of us choose to preserve our memories a thousand words at a time.

Not too long ago, an idyllic summer evening, my friends and I were talking about our to-do lists. Goals we wanted to achieve before we hit thirty. Some wanted to turn parents. One wanted to get in shape. Another wished to travel more. And I, a person of few needs and fewer wants, hoped to publish a book. I don’t expect it to feature on any bestseller lists, or dream of having book signing events. Nevertheless, it would still be a book, one born of my writing, a tome I could point to and say, “That’s me. I’m a writer now”. I have two more years to achieve this. As I mentioned earlier, I am a whimsical writer. I have all these stories in my head, but I need to get them out.

All in due time. For tonight, having written this will suffice. At the end of a long and dreary week, I feel alive. And that somehow makes it all seem a little brighter.