How I Rediscovered Writing While In Quarantine
Whenever I go through my old diaries, I find at least one incomplete story or poem somewhere in between. And every time that I had started writing any of these pieces, it was always a great idea. I would flesh out the characters and plot details for two-three days, but I just couldn’t find the right beginning.
So, all my stories which were supposed to be a 250-page novel were left after 4 pages.
This was really disheartening to me because I knew that many of these ideas were very unique and if written well could have been an amusing story. I could never understand why I didn’t commit to these stories when I was so passionate about them when I cultivated the idea?
I knew the answer to this question was rather multifold and I had no way of solving this at the time. So, my teenage brain came to the best conclusion that it could find and that was to simply stop writing stories!
Simple, right? Well, at first yes! Back when things were going smoothly and I was in college, there was no problem. I was busy all day with something or the other that I would barely get time to write my Instagram captions, let alone writing a full-fledged story.
But things took an unexpected turn when I returned home in a pandemic.
As a few days passed, I started feeling lonely and upset and I had no other way to express myself other than to write down my thoughts. And yes for the first time in my life, I maintained a journal for three months, and as upsetting as it may be to read later, it was the only thing that kept me sane.
So, finally after discarding writing for 4 years, I returned to it in this quarantine. And I have listed four golden ideas that have helped me complete my writing pieces.
Writing for a purpose
People are ten times more efficient when they are on a deadline.
I don’t know if that’s a fact or not, but this is the motto I live by. I am such an anxious person that as soon as I am bound by a timer, I start working on things that I might have procrastinated for months. And that is what is working in my favor these days.
Instead of writing something to pass time, I have started writing because of a reason. To help fuel this process I even joined an NGO as a content writer. This gives me a chance to keep working on small write-ups and articles. Since I have to write for them, I do not slack and finish my work on time.
This is now widened as my mindset these days is to write for a purpose. Be it to finish a post for my Medium account or just to write poetry to express suppressed emotions, I have assigned a purpose to each of them and they no longer seem like a pastime, rather like a productive chore.
Drawing inspiration from others
A new thing that I have started doing these days is going through a lot of blogs. I randomly open any publication on Medium and I start to read the recent posts. If some topic interests me, I skim through the blog to understand the overall post.
In this process, if I find a topic that is relatable to me and I believe that I can write something based on my personal experience, I make a note of the topic. After that, the topic basically remains in my mind all through the day and I try to come up with points related to it.
If I have enough to write about it, then I do so at night, otherwise new day, new hunt, new topic!
This way I don’t just end up paraphrasing some else’s article, rather I am able to come up with something that echoes with me so I am more excited to write it and end up completing the blogs. I know most of them will remain as drafts, but at least I get the satisfaction of completing my write-up.
Write to express
As a person with a lot of opinions, it always becomes difficult to decide when to speak my mind and when not. This mostly results in the latter. Therefore I have a lot of original thoughts about a wide variety of topics These come in handy when I have to write about any topic where there is even the slightest room for personal views.
I guess, it’s useful being an opinionated ambivert.
Most of the posts written are a representation of my thoughts and not merely a summary of hard facts. So, before I start writing, I like to think about my own viewpoint on the topic and this helps me to add value to my piece and also makes me more likely to finish it because I already know how I feel about the topic.
Of course, there is always room for improvisation after considering the opinions of others or collecting data from various sources. But when the starting thoughts are a product of my own thoughts and beliefs it’s much easier to write.
The two-time rule
This is a rule that I created that has actually helped me a lot in writing especially if the piece is not for someone else. The rule is that I only work on a write-up two times. It might sound a little childish for experts who work on single pieces for weeks to improve their quality and make them richer.
But hear me out.
This rule is not for projects or writeups that I need to submit as assignments. This is for those times when I want to write on a topic myself and I am not sure what will I do with the blog. So, I prepare the bullet points beforehand and at the time of writing, I simply pen down those thoughts in the best way possible.
Then I sleep on it. And in the morning if I have something to add to it, I do that, otherwise, I edit the file and make the final changes. Following this rule gives me clarity of the amount of time I will be spending on a write-up. And knowing that it would just be two sittings makes me relieved and I tend to write better and actually complete my pieces.
I am at the beginning phase of my writing journey and I know that I have a long way to go. And for me, it is very important to take the first step and that is to write more and more.
If you are someone who is unable to commit to writing or you too start with a lot of passion but somewhere after that you lose direction, don’t lose hope! Just pick up the pen and start writing and one day you will know how to conclude.
