Hey Friends,
So I have been a writer all my life or at least dreamt of being one of any sort, be it writing knock off stories of the thirsty crow or blogging on my website, and recently since the blog has done quite well, I went on an expedition to know more stuff about writing and I found out an absolute master class of a book written by arguably one of the best writers India has had…Ruskin bond and so let’s distil down this short little book “how to be a writer” in the second edition of book club.
Prerequisites to be a good writer
1) A great love and fascination for reading books.
2) A deeper understanding of the language and its nuances, along with the love for language.
3) A love for life and the endless experiences it brings forth.
4) An observant eye much like Yudhisthira from the epic Mahabharata.
5) A good sense of memory of things and happenings around the world.
6) Enthusiasm in writing and knowing about its nuances.
7) Being optimistic in whatever you do that is related to writing, be it finding a publisher or an editor.
8) Persistency is key to success in whatever you do but more than every other field, it’s most needed for a writer.
Tips for budding writers:
- Always use the places and characters that you are most familiar with, and that’s why someone like Shakespeare hasn’t written Panchatantra stories which takes place in Bundelkhand😅 but instead wrote a classy novel happening in the suburbs of London.
- Always have a notebook beside you, you might not know when and whether an idea could cross your mind. World-renowned scientist Thomas Edison used to think a lot and enter a deep state mode but the problem was that he would fall asleep while doing so, so he would fill his hands with a bunch of marbles so that once he dozes of the marbles would fall and wake him up and then he would recollect the things that he thought and write it down.
- Keep your text crisp and clean and avoid using eccentric words unless it elevates the experience of the reader by a respectable amount.
How to avoid writer’s block:
- First, just imagine and run through the text in your mind and have a clear mind about what you are going to write.
- If that doesn’t work put aside whatever you are writing and engage yourself in poetry or some other form of shorter writing.
- If that too doesn’t work just use the waste paper bin, there is a good amount of evidence that dustbins were invented by writers lol😂😆
Lastly…some book recommendations:
- Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
- Far from the madding crowd by Thomas Hardy
- Malgudi Days by R.K Narayanan
- Panchatantra tales
- Harry Potter series by J.K Rowling
- Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Canon Doyle
- Gullivers Travels by Jonathon Swift if you are particularly interested in social and political satire
- 1984 By George Orwell
- Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash