The Most Diffcult Thing for Writers

Time and inspiration never coincide. That is the single largest reason why so many novels lie unfinished. Writers need time to write. They also need the creative juices flowing. These two have to happen at the same time. Those who write fiction face the greatest degree of difficulty. Poets have it relatively easy. In fact they are the only kind of writers who are not affected by this problem.I don’t really have much sympathy for those who are writing poetry. Most modern poetry is really one longish sentence that has been written with three words to a line. Here is a poem my friend wroteThe unfinished wordsStare at me Daring you toComplete them aloneThink about it. That is basically a single sentence disguised to look like a poem. “The unfinished words stare at me daring you to complete them alone”. Even if the inspiration came to you while you were skydiving, you could tuck the sentence in one corner of your brain as you leapt towards what seemed like certain death. Even after your poem has been washed in adrenaline, it comes unscathed.Haikus are even easier to write. Take, for example, this haiku by American novelist Jack Kerouac:Snow in my shoe            Abandoned            Sparrow's nestEven an email to your boss if typed in that format can become a memorable haiku. Just type it and mail it. Voila, you are now a haiku-spouting poet – the talk of the literary world.Writing non-fiction is tougher than writing poems. If you get the idea of your next book while making a presentation for the boss, try to put your ideas in slides. That way your coworkers will believe you are preparing the keynote your boss is scheduled to deliver and your book will be complete along with an awesome keynote that would make Steve Jobs jealous.If you want to write fiction, you must know that you have made the worst possible choice. You have just been dealt a lousy set of cards by fate. It will take you years before you get that thing going and even longer to complete it. Believe me I know how it feels. I have been there.I took three years to write my second novel – Married But Available. That is not because of some literary heights I was trying to scale. The plot was going well. The hero’s marriage had fallen apart. The girl he loved in college had come back into his life and he was about to be laid off (at work that is). When it came to writing the closing chapter I drew a blank. I just couldn’t figure out how to get the damn story to end.One day I dreamt of the perfect ending. I thought I would get up and write it out. But when it comes to choosing between a sensible decision and snoozing some more, I am a sucker for instant gratification. I slept some more. When I woke up I could not recall anything from my dream. The story remained unfinished for a few more months. Inspiration never strikes twice.It happened again when I was in the shower. I was late for work. I asked myself, should I sacrifice my shower and complete my incomplete masterpiece? The answer was “Heck, no!” So the novel remained tantalizingly incomplete. The ideas would always happen at annoyingly inconvenient times. I would get ideas while driving through traffic and watched helplessly as my ideas danced away in front of my eyes only to be honked at by other office goers.If you must know, I finally completed my novel.Let us just say that my editor used a method that is popular with the police. It works.-----------------Join me on Twitter @abhijitbhaduriRead a short story by me The Fifth Number