The Art of Writing

One of my friends is a douchebag. That’s his own opinion about himself. He calls himself self centered, his girlfriend calls him self centered, and now since I have a chance here, yes, he is feckin’ self centered. (I picked up the ‘feckin’ from Marian Keyes. It satisfies my desire to say ‘fuckin’ and at the same time, doesn’t sound vulgar. I love Irish people.)
So yeah, this douchebag friend of mine asks me pretty often why and how can people, that’s you, read my blog? In his own words, “Why would they be interested in knowing what’s going on in your mind? Why would they read an article about who you are?” I used to find this question pretty legit in the beginning because if you look at it first-hand, it would puzzle you too. Why would anyone want to read what’s going on in your mind especially when they can do sixty eight thousand three hundred and ninety six better things rather than reading your post? A few days ago, I was reading a lady’s blog post when I found out the reason why would they.
It was her perception of what would have made Somerset Maugham tear off the pages of a book while reading it and riding a camel in a desert.  Honestly, I’m not interested in Somerset Maugham or camels or deserts. Nor am I interested in acquiring the art of tearing off the pages of a book while riding a feckin camel in a feckin desert. But nonetheless,  I read the article. And I read it till the end and enjoyed it. Because she had put some nice punches in between, because every line I read out of that post made me crave for more of it. Because she had told it nicely. Because when one writes, that is what matters the most. It’s the way you tell the story that makes the difference. If you’re going to keep your reader engaged in your story, even better – if you’re going to make them visualize it, they’re definitely going to read it and like it.
And it’s not always necessary that you begin talking about one thing and keep talking about it till the end to sound interesting. If you go to your readers page now and look at any of the posts from the blogs you follow,  you’ll see that most of them will have the word ‘I’ or ‘my’ in the opening sentence. Which means all of them have a story to tell and its not extraordinary and doesn’t talk about a shepherd named Santiago following his dream or a wealthy man looking for the love of his life. And yet, you read those. You follow them and what they have to say because they tell it in a manner that is attractive.  That’s why regardless of how much their post is about themselves, or their experiences or about the people they know,  you read and like it. In fact,  if you see how I began this post, you’ll find that its no different and then you’ll also see that I began telling you about my douchebag friend and at this point, the post has become a serious talk about writing and you’re still reading it because you have liked it. As far as this point ‘.’ At least.
I am writing this today because if someone out there feels skeptical about their writing like I did about mine, I want them to know that it’s never so bad to tell others how you feel as long as what you feel is really interesting or at least you tell that in an interesting manner.
And after this,  if you’re still wondering “why would they want to read what’s going on in my mind if I don’t want to read what’s going on in their mind”, it’s just a kind of prejudice you have about others. You believe that they’re all the same kind of people like you are. Or wait, I would rather answer that with a stanza from my favorite Hindi song:
Maine yeh bhi socha hai aksar
Tu bhi main bhi sabhi hai sheeshe
Khudhi ko hum sabhi mein dekhein
Nahin hoon main hoon main toh phir bhi
Sahi galat, tumhara main
Mujhe paana, paana hai khud ko
It says,”I have often thought about this that you and me and all of us are mirrors. So when we look at each other, we see ourselves. I’m not who you think I am. Then how can you judge me if I’m right or wrong? (Breaking free from this prejudice) I want to find and seek myself.”
Bottom line, don’t judge your readers and don’t think much about how and why would they find it interesting.  Just write and they’ll read.