Why do I write

The question is to all writers. The answer is for all writers.

Why am I writing blogs?

There are thousands, may be millions of blog writers. They are writing and writing. There is an enormous load of writing in the cyber world. Why should I add a weight to it by my presence? Here are some of my reasons for writing. These and some more may be the reason for every writer.

1.    I write because I have something to tell. Shall I add ‘something new”? Necessarily no. I do not claim that I am telling something new. But I have something to tell you. You might have heard it from someone else before or you may hear it from some others hereafter. That does not matter. I write not because you have never heard what I am going to tell or that none in the world is going to tell it to you. But because I have a thought, an argument or a suggestion to tell you. It is my thought, my feelings, my emotions, my passions, my tragedy and my success. I am no longer able to contain it in my heart. I must speak or I break. I must open up or I suffocate myself. I must shout or I die. It is life or death for me. It is my very existence. It is a remainder to me that I am alive. It is a message to my soul. Writing is speaking to me and inspiring me. So I write. I cannot live without.

2.    I write because I have no other audience. I am suffocating with my thoughts. I feel heavy with my feelings. I must tell others. But to whom? I have no audience. I have none to listen to me. You are busy, running mad after the thing called ‘life’. I like a beggar sit at a street corner pleading for a moment from you to listen to my story. People pass beyond me are sympathetic. Some hesitates and then moves fast. Some others think that I am mad, a nuisance, a fool, a thing to get rid of. I have no audience. I change place, I meet the same people with the same attitude. Is there none to listen to me? I have to ease my heart by letting it flow out. I expect no response, whether positive or negative. I want only an ear for a few moments. None has time. None have the patience. So I write hoping to find someone in the universe who may listen to my heart. I write to an unknown, unseen, uncertain audience. Still I write, I open up, my hear flows. I write to my comfort.

3.    I write because you otherwise do not listen. I understand your plight. You are busy. You are running to reach the goal. You are rushing to reach the other end. You are maddened by this little thing called ‘life’.  In fact you are an automated machine, you cannot be otherwise. This world has constructed you, formed and reformed you by love and force, by its philosophies and conventions into an automated machine. You have no time to think, no time to feel and no time to love. Who can blame you? I understand your tragic state because I too once was like you, running after a thing I have never seen, heard or felt. I ran and ran and finally understood the folly of running. I cannot tell you how it exactly happened. I do not remember when it really happened. But it happened. I understood that it is foolish to run after life; rather it is wise to live the life. There after I started to live. I know that you have not yet reached that point. So go on running until you realize the folly of running; until you realize what those beauties you miss on your way. I write because you have no time and leisure to listen to me. I write for you to read after you have stopped running. I write for you read after you have realized the folly of your mad rush. I write for you to read while you live the life.

4.    I write to console and guide you. You do not need any consolation and guidance now. You do not bother. You do not now value the petty platitude of a stranger. I understand it. I have sympathy yet I cannot do nothing but watch and wait. You have strength, money and power. You think that these are sufficient to conquer any mountain. You believe that your mad chase to conquer life is living. I know, for sure, that life cannot be conquered by anyone in this world. So I stopped the chase. Rather I chose living the life. One day, sooner or later, you too will realize your folly and will stop running. You are destined to fail in the chase. On that day you will feel defeated, frustrated and panic. I am writing all these for you to read on such a day for consolation and guidance. I write because I love you, because I do not want to see you lost in the darkness of nothingness. Life really begins after we have stopped running after it. We actually live after the chase. Then and there, I will console you. My writings will be a guide. Till then everything I have writing remain rubbish for all those who are in the chase after life.

 Professor Jacob Abraham

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How to write a creative blog?

Creative writing is different from scientific or technical writings. It is different from tech blogs.

1.       Creative writing is an expression of self. There is nothing like objectivity in creative writing. No creative writer can be 100% percentage objective. No creative writer can stand off and write like a newspaper reporter. Even a newspaper reporter is not completely objective. A creative writer, even when he is writing like an objective narrator is narrating incidents as he sees it. A medium always make transformations to what pass through it. Since every medium is different from the other, the output is also different. The output is like the rays of light that comes out of a prism. So creative writing is an expression of self.

No blog reader sees the writer in physical form. The reader sees and understands the writer through the words written by him in his blogs. Words gather together to form sentences and then ideas. Ideas are a mirror image of the writer.

So express what you want your writer should know about you. Express only the part of the writer that may benefit the reader. Hiding a part of the writer is not a sin. Every person has a private face that sometimes even he may not see often.

2.       Do not be emotional over the blog unless the subject demands it. Do not emotionalize your theme. Even emotions can be presented rationally. Rational presentation is not opposite of emotional presentation. Rational presentation is restrained expression of emotions. None can predict the effect of words on its readers. Words have their own power and path. They run uncontrollable once they are set free from the writer. Once a word is written by the writer it is no longer chained to him. The writer can only watch helplessly as it run creating impressions.

3.       Be a responsible writer. A writer should have a responsibility towards the reader. Ideas near die. Ideas cannot be withdrawn. Ideas never obey ownership. Ideas have no masters. Ideas once expressed do not belong to any particular person. Ideas have magnificent power to change the society. The change may be for good or bad. History is a proof of the power of ideas. Nothing has impacted the world more than ideas.

So a writer must be careful in expressing his ideas. Do not shout in the dawn what you dreamed in the night. Permit it to go through a settlement time in which it may act and react with many other ideas and circumstances and gradually precipitate. Show the world only the precipitation.

4.       Most of the readers, even a casual reader who read a blog at a railway station to waste his time, are searching for an answer to the question: “How to live?”(Matthew Arnold – Study of Poetry). Tech blogs are answering questions on technology. They cannot answer the question on life. Only creative writing can give a direction to life. Even today’s education fails to give a proper answer the question on life. There is the space and role of a creative writer. Remember, every creative writer is shaping the future of the world.

5.       Do not use jargons, complex terms and hard nut theories. None read your blog for hair splitting philosophy. Still there is no serious writing without philosophy. Serious poetry, prose and drama are presenting a philosophy on life. A great part of religion is philosophy. A serious blogger too cannot ignore philosophy. He too will have to present a philosophy on life. Then present it in everyday language that it may look like a common saying that is popular among the peasants. That is the skill of a creative writer.

6.       Blogs should be instructive and entertaining. Readers of blogs are not there for a deep thought to immerse themselves for the rest of the day.  Still being instructive is the commitment of the writer. Readers may be searching for pleasure. The writer should provide them bitter pills coated with sugar. The reader unknowingly swallows the sugar coated pills and gets healed because of the medicine inside the sweet coating.

7.       Write always for an international audience. Among your readers there may be English speaking natives, those who have learned English because of migration and many who are using it as a foreign language. Write for all of them. Give some explanation here and there for local customs and usages. English has a lot of variants as many as the nations where the language is learned. Today English is not the language of the British, but it is an international language. Since the purpose of writing is to communicate, the writer must take care that his ideas are communicated well across the borders.

8.       You should not leave anything obscure in your blogs. You may not get a chance to explain what you have written to every reader. Do not give a chance to anyone to interpret your words. Let them explain, but never interpret.

9.       Finally, make it brief, as brief as you can. No maximum length for a blog can be ordered, not even by a writer. Write not all you want to say in a single blog. If you have many more to tell, write another blog. You may suffix the title with “Part 1” or “Part 2”. Remember the great saying, “brevity is the soul of wit.” Do not go on explaining and explaining thus creating confusion. Fewer words are more powerful than loose words.

Wishing you happy blogging,

Professor Jacob Abraham

Further reading:

How do I write a blog 

Writing Blogs 

Creativity is a mystery 

Creative artist is a creator of a new object

A creative artist, by the term itself, is a creator of a new thing.

A new thing means something that did not exist till the time.

A replica of an existing object is also a new thing.

The word object includes all things that are sensual.

What does a creative artist creates?

He is creating an object that conveys his emotions and thoughts to an audience or readers.

His motives in creation are self satisfaction and communication. Self satisfaction is derived from the act of creation. A motive for creation is ingrained in the heart of every human being. Man considers the act of creation as the supreme act he can perform. The joy of creation is indescribable and immeasurable. A motive for creation is found in the human blood irrespective of cast, creed and race. So man wants to create something of his own. A replica of an existing object is also a new creation because every creation is new in this world. It did not exist before it was created.

Creation is a personal act that happens in the inner life of a man. The created object is not kept hidden from others. As soon as the creator finishes his act of creation, he exhibits the object. He brings it to the public audience for their enjoyment and judgment. The enjoyment or the judgment of the audience may not affect the joy of creation and the love of the creator towards the created object. Still he wants others to watch, read, enjoy and judge. That means the creator wants to communicate his feelings, emotions and thoughts through the created object. Even those who claim that they are writing, painting or doing such creative act for their mental satisfaction only, present their creation to the enjoyment and judgment of an audience.

The joy of creation completes only with sharing the joy with other human beings.

The joy of creation completes only when the creator realize that he could communicate with an audience.

All else is failure.

So every creation of an artist belongs to him and to the public audience. The audience has no part in the creation of the object. The artist never invites the audience to partake in the act of creation, because he is creating an object that successfully communicates his own emotions and thoughts.

As soon as the creator presents the object that he has created to an audience, it belongs to the audience too. They have a right to enjoy and judge the creation. They have freedom to accept or reject the creation. By enjoying and judging and by accepting and rejecting they are enjoying, judging, accepting or rejecting the emotions and thoughts of the artist.

The artist should be careful to communicate effectively with the audience. Otherwise many a good creations will be rejected. The fault partially lies with the artist himself.

The audience should find their share in the emotions and thoughts communicated. Else the audience will find the communicated emotions and thoughts strange and violent. Here also the artist is only partially faulty.

The artist may be living ahead of his contemporary audience. Hence he may leave his creation to the enjoyment and right judgment of a future generation.

Who should illustrate and illuminate the communicated emotions and thoughts? The artist or the audience?

Let us discuss it in another blog.

Further reading:  Creativity is a mystery

Professor Jacob Abraham                                                                            

http://professorjacobabraham.blogspot.in

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