'Writing': My favourite form of Expression

Everyone has 'power' of mind. It is there in the mind for every person and how the person utilises his power of his or her mind is based on the 'aptitude' of a person. Some have the power of expressing their mind through various art forms like singing, dancing, painting, crafts, sculpting, drawing, playing instruments and so on. I am blessed with power of writing! Although I play some musical instruments or also sing according to my mood but that does not keep my mind occupied enough as it keeps me satisfied when I write.

Writing with a fountain tipped pen was my first delight of writing on paper. Of course in our times slates and white pencils were first introduced to us as our beginning of writing, but I never enjoyed the writing on the slates with those stone pencils. It was only when my dad gave me my first fountain pen of silver colour with an ink bottle and a dropper. It was initially quite messy to put the ink into the pen by the dropper, however when I started to write on a notebook with a pen my joy knew no bounds. Till end of school we were mainly using the fountain pen and the ball point pens were used by us only when we entered the university and then writing with ball point pens became a habit, they were not messy and we need not carry a bottle of ink with us, which was a blessing because I remember the ink pot had got leaked many times in my school bags and pens also some times leaked on my shirt pockets.

Writing the exam papers with pens with the fastest speed that I could learn quickly as there was a time limit and my speed was reasonably good and the handwriting was average. But I used to write a lot of stories, plays and essays in my mother tongue Marathi right from school days and it continued till I started working in companies. I also remember joining a typewriting class in the vacation when I was first time introduced to type 'asdfgf with left hand and ';lkjH' with the right hand and then type writing became a habit which is still helping me very well in typing on computer keyboards without looking below with speed. By the time my college education was over I had my own Remington mini portable type writer which I used to love carrying everywhere I went, before we became victims of computer keyboards and then everything changed in my writing styles. I slowly became a slave of computer keyboards and then writing with pen got reduced to such an extent that now a stage has reached when I used pen only for putting my signatures.

“You don’t start out writing good stuff. You start out writing crap and thinking it’s good stuff, and then gradually you get better at it. That’s why I say one of the most valuable traits is persistence.” ― Octavia E. Butler. This was my favourite quote on writing and I went on writing and writing and am still writing on key boards including mobile phone key boards and I just love when my fingers start dancing on the keyboard efficiently while I look at the screen the beautiful letters being typed out in the form of my writing.

Writing relaxes my mind and I get restless unless I finish my writing whatever time of the day or night it is. It has become my simple form of expression and it gives me immense pleasure. It refreshes my mind and the flow of my thoughts appear on the screen like compartments of a train and I take a pause only when I feel that my final station of destination has been reached. I don't write drafts and correct them, my style is keep writing in the flows and making typographical errors or grammatical mistakes but I don't let my flow stop because now there is a provision of editing online when we can correct everything we want to, but in the olden days of manual typewriting there was no saving of drafts or corrections were made only with the correction white fluid which used to look so ugly on the paper, that I used to type without making many mistakes then.

The cluttered mind with thoughts and expressions need to be put on the screen at the earliest as writing them down helps me to unwind and also to feel satisfied that my thought process has been now uniformly disciplined and the clutter in the mind has been cleared and the flow of writing without a pause helps me relax my mind and keeps me in good mood.

My best creative writing has taken place whenever I was under tremendous stress or mental pressure and to gain good control of my mind I would start writing and then as if a lock is unlocked with a key, my writing would open my locked mind and make it free flowing with beautiful imagination and I would always wonder how could I write such nice things.

Even today while travelling in buses, taxis trains or planes my writing continues as it helps me to be in the rhythm of motion of the vehicle and keeps my thoughts coming with those mind jerks and natural movements of the body. Writing therefore is my passion and whether people like it or not, appreciate it or not, I keep on writing and using my mind expression to the best way I can. I feel so complete and happy when I finish writing and snap my fingers.

As the famous Ray Bradbury says "Writing is Zen." The author must find their voice and not be an imitation of others. There is only one you just like there is only Shakespeare. Do not write for money but rather work , don't think and relax. Achieve your 'Zen' in the art of writing!!!