An author, 22 months in waiting

Two days ago, I met a charming, joyful, youthful man in his mid-fifties at the Kochi airport. His fair-skinned face was made brighter with his clean-shaven, moustache-removed face. I have much respect and love for this person, partly because he is a farmer sowing seeds of love and harmony into the lives of disturbed families across the breadth & depth of Kerala, partly because there is much serenity and peace in his warm personality.

He and I got to discussing life and the joy of living. It was then that I discovered that he was working on a book, wanting to get it published. On asking further, I was told that he was not able to write daily. His crutch was his mood. So he would write when his mood was good. He had enough and more to write about, but due to one reason or another he did not have the right mood (mental frame work) to write. He mentioned that it was 22 months since he started the project, and it seemed that he still had a long way to go.

At this I shared the golden keys to be a consistently successful writer viz.

1. Discipline is the key to harness creativity, including writing which is a creative pursuit. Writing should not be left at the mercy of one’s mood. Thus once you decide to write 250 words or 1,000 words daily, just do it.
2. Writing is to be separated from editing. Write when you decide to do it. Edit it in a separate time slot.

I should give credit for the first tip to the blogger I follow much, Jeff Goins @ www.JeffGoins.com. I recall, the importance of daily discipline in writing was shared first by my Dad. I recall, my Dad mention to me how Somerset Maugham would write for 4 hours daily.

There was a twinkle in his eyes of the soon-to-be author. He explained, “Yes, I will do it as a routine.” The joy in perceiving the reduced time frame for publishing the first book was refreshing to our hearts. We bid adieu.