There's a thing about firsts. Your first friend at school, your first job, your first kiss, your first relationship, your first heartbreak, every first matters in life, except when it comes to writing.
I was some 6 years old when I wrote my first script for a movie and submitted it to Dad, asking him to make a movie out of it (Dad was working on an Assamese film at that time), only to be utterly dejected to find out I was just a child with a far-from-perfect film script demanding that it be produced. I was upset for days and forgot about it soon until I wrote my next short-story at the age of 7 and gifted it to him, in the hope that he would get the hint that I wanted a film out of this one too. None of the works ever got converted to movies (well, of course), but I learned over time that our first work of writing, no matter how special they are to us, would always be horribly imperfect.
My first poem was fine though. It was an assignment for the class to write a poem in Hindi where the first two sentences were provided by the teacher. I was ten years old then and the teacher read it out in front of the class. She would then urge me to submit slogans on certain topics for some exhibition or the other. There was no turning back for me as I would keep writing poems in English for myself and in Hindi for her perusal in the years hence.
My first blog post received a lot of views, my first blog was one of the top blogs in India and my first short-story submission won a competition judged by Ashwin Sanghi. All this when I was 21 years old, and I had forgotten that the journey of writing isn't actually supposed to be so smooth.
So, I thought my first novel would be special too. I was co-writing it with another author who already had some bestsellers to his name. We started writing it in 2013 but we never could actually finish writing it since we started hating our own words. He hated what he wrote and I hated what I wrote. We often texted each other - "It's not you, it's me", not for any idea of romance between us but for our aspirational wromance (Why isn't wromance a word yet for writers trying to co-author a book?). No one told us writing fiction involved so much of self-hatred. We dropped the idea altogether after having written some 50,000 words in 2017.
Meanwhile, writing poems was second nature to me - a quick solve to both cater to my emotions as well as my itch to write and express.
However, when I published my first e-book of poetry "The Farewell and other poems" in 2014, only 6 copies were sold, my own purchase included. It did so bad that I had to delete it from the history of the internet and my memories.
I later made a few modifications and republished it in 2017 with the name "The Art of Grieving". It did fairly well, but not as well as the other bodies of work that followed, namely "The Art of Letting Go" in 2018, "The Art of Healing" in 2020 and "Between Us" in 2021.
In the last few years of speaking to my readers and reading their mails/messages, I had almost forgotten again how poorly my first book of poetry had performed in the market, and how horribly I had trashed my first co-written manuscript of 50,000 words, half-written and never looked back at.
I started writing my first solo manuscript again in April 2019. This time I started with a fresh idea and aimed to finish writing it by December. The first few chapters were fine until some urgent project deliverable came up at my workplace that broke the streak of writing. It is 2022 and I never finished writing the book.
The thing is I always thought poetry was second nature to me and hence, hardly saw my publications as works filled with effort. The only effort I had to put in them was the editing and typesetting I had to do. For the latest book, I didn't even have to do the typesetting since the publisher did that entirely.
But when it comes to writing a novel, that's what I saw as where the "real effort" of writing comes in. I have glorified the idea of finishing a novel so much in my head that I have discredited my own books of poetry. I have attached myself with the idea of being a novelist so much that although people see me as a poet, I myself hardly do.
I often felt like I just released my books of poetry by chance while the real intent always was to write novels.
Life happens by chance, though. And the more I detach myself from my books of poetry, the more readers see me as a poet. The more I attach myself to writing my first book, the less I can finish writing it.
Today I am horribly stuck at writing the next few words on my novel-in-progress. The fear behind the procrastination is that I have romanticized the idea of being a novelist so much that I'd probably not be able to take it well if the work doesn't turn out to be promising. I have probably put all my hopes and dreams in it so much that I have forgotten that it is still going to be my first novel - horribly imperfect, no matter how special it is to me.
I have joined this writing cohort now with the sole aim of finishing writing this book in the next 6 months. I recall these ugly words that came out of my mouth when I was speaking to my mentor - "If I really am a writer, I should be able to finish writing this book within the next 6 months".
I wouldn't say these harsh words for someone else then why did I carry them with me and for me? I wonder from where did I really pick up the idea that a true writer is only the one who has a novel in her kitty?
The fact is every other person I know is a writer, every other person I know has written a full manuscript and have published it. Most people I know ask me to help them to connect to publishers for their one great piece of work they want to see published. I have assumed when I finish writing my book, I will have publishers ready to pick up my work, but the only thing is that I have nothing to share with them. It is likely though that the same publishers I am talking about won't pick up my work. (I'd never know until I finish writing the book.) And the only thing that's stopping me is my fear of failure, of imperfection. All this, because some day in the ancient history, I decided that I'd only be truly called a writer if I too, like all my other acquaintances, have a novel in my name.
I have thus, discredited all the writing I have been doing from the age of 10, all the articles I have written, all the short-stories I have published, all the books of poetry I have in my name. I have discredited all my hard work because they were not as hard as it is for me to write a novel. Classic Impostor Syndrome of devaluing your work just because they come naturally to you now! (After years of practice, mind you!)
And then I have put all my attachments and expectations in my first novel that's yet to be finished. Going by my years of writing poetry and finally having my work published, I would roughly need 20 more years of writing novels to finally have something worth publishing. I am still at my first, and doing a great disservice to my own creativity, by putting all the self-inflicted pressure on my inner writer.
The truth is I would still be a writer even if I don't have my novel ready by this year, or the year after that, or for many years to come. I'd still be a writer if I decide never to finish writing my novel. I'd still be a writer if I only write poems and articles and snippets on Instagram. I'd still be a writer if I don't write anywhere except on my personal diary. I'd still be a writer if I'm not writing anything at all, because even then, I would be writing in my own head.
I write because I enjoy writing. And for that reason, I would always be a writer, even if I have a social title for that or not.
And when it comes to finishing my novel, it's high time I go back to my own advice - write like no one's reading.
(And maybe, just to cut myself some slack, I should stop calling it "my first novel" and call it my fifth book, instead.)
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