Deadlines are absolute stumbling blocks. This is primarily the reason why I cannot be a journalist, whose pay envelope and efficiency depends largely on keeping the deadlines. I am better off as a creative writer who is at liberty to twist and manipulate words, invent and re-invent sentences to dramatize a point with no deadlines to think of. I do prefer the warm, figurative language and the more creative literary “lingo”, rather than the cold, detached and the straight-forward language of the news writers. While news writing feeds on issues and current events, creative writing needs more than that, for it feeds on inspiration.

Creative writers flourish more in a writer-friendly environment where minds can wander freely without pressure. Needless to say, it takes time to squeeze the creative juice and accelerate its flow to the fifth gear.  Hitting the first flash is much more difficult than you think.  Believe me, writing the first line is like going through a tunnel of words triggered by a smile, a wink, a sound, a dream, and all sort of random things sending writers in a tailspin with wild flutters and weird stirrings of the heart. The most difficult part in the process of writing is how to pick up and select from that tunnel, the right words to describe what just hit you. If all of these words don’t come tumbling down at our feet, then we must look inward and discover what feeds our soul.

Please don’t hate me for saying this, but sites that require collecting and purchasing dollar-member pumps to promote written pieces as a vehicle to improve one’s ranking as a writer, are absolute creative blockers too.  Despite the craziness of it all, we still willingly succumb to the euphoria of getting ahead, reviewing and collecting pumps to make our work always available for the readers. Failing to join the crowd means death to your prose and poetry as well as the rankings too. What the heck, sometimes reviewing and collecting pumps takes precedence over and above everything, clogging the tunnel of words before we could even collect them. Still, I am a satisfied member because I have found a family of writers from different places, backgrounds and persuasions. That is all that matters to me, I guess.

After all these and you are still stuck in that tunnel, then perhaps a creative crutch will help. A crutch is a refuge or a sanctuary where writers usually visit to nurture their muse.  Mine is a dictionary of thoughts, a collection of immortalized quotations and verses, a legacy which my father left for his children to read.  Reading them again and again drives me to write with renewed zeal without pressure, without deadlines. If you still cannot write, then nothing works. Rien ne va.