Writing--A life long love affair. post 2

A few folks after reading the previous post  (This is the third blog marathon I am doing) wrote to me asking "Where and how and when do you find the time?"
For those who really want to know, I have written a detailed post about it.
For those who are  just asking , "Oh well, what can I say? "  [Accompanied with a 'trying to be modest' look]
 
One blog which fascinates me, touches me and which I read quite regularly, but which I have never mentioned before is Agnes's  . Apart from some breathtaking photographs she posts, I love the honesty, openness and sincerity with which she writes too. If you read her latest posts, no one will be able to say what a huge personal tragedy she is coping with, at the moment. The support she receives on the blog is tremendous.

To me, that is what blogging is all about. That is the reason I will never stop blogging too.
The fact is, most bloggers who have written consistently (by consistently I mean at least 5 posts a month) are writers. They write simply because they must. It is really hard to explain this need to someone who does not feel an urge to write.

Writng Pictures, Images and Photos
Personally, I write a lot, and not just online.  I have written by hand (and drawn pictures too) ever since I can remember. I still have some 'books' which I wrote by hand when I was about 7 or 8. I have a handwritten journal, which I have had for many years, in which I have written whenever I felt a need to. I use an old fashioned fountain pen too.This journal  of mine is also full of interesting clippings from magazines/newspapers. So it is a journal plus a scrapbook.

I also have a private journal online. Then I have several journals, all written by hand. Two contain my poems which are all painstakingly hand written. Others contain  many different things which I find fascinating. I also have two ongoing journals (which are work-in-progress), one for my son and one for my daughter. I would be gifting it to them when they are adults. I had started this journal when I was expecting them. The journal is all about them--what they did and what they are interested in, at the moment.I capture all the memories. It is amazing to travel back the memory lane and read about what my son did when he was two.(He is 13 now).Same for my daughter. I don't write in these books daily--sometimes even six months would have passed before I made an entry--but each entry is elaborate and full of interesting details. I have also stuck  in their journals stuff like the drawings which they made ( if they were particularly good). The people closest to my children and who have touched their lives in some ways, have also been invited to write in these two journals and the pages which my dad wrote to them (I lost my dad in Sept 2006) is something which is truly priceless.
 
Some of my closest friends have received handwritten books which I have made. That (and my paintings) is truly the best gift I can give somebody.I have used some beautiful handmade paper journals to create these books similar to the ones shown below.


I absolutely LOVE this kind of stuff which I source from Auroville in Pondicherry. (You can look at more pictures here  from where the above picture has been used too.)

For me, writing is a passion. Writing is an obsession. Writing is therapeutic. Writing is life.
I write because I will explode if I don't.

Thank you for reading me :) And thank you for saying such lovely things about my writing too :) (I am honoured)

I will see you tomorrow and I leave you today (I want to watch the match!)  with some quotes on writing which I could so well relate to:

You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.  ~Ray Bradbury

Writing became such a process of discovery that I couldn't wait to get to work in the morning:  I wanted to know what I was going to say.  ~Sharon O'Brien


It is necessary to write, if the days are not to slip emptily by.  How else, indeed, to clap the net over the butterfly of the moment?  For the moment passes, it is forgotten; the mood is gone; life itself is gone.  That is where the writer scores over his fellows:  he catches the changes of his mind on the hop.  ~Vita Sackville-West


Easy reading is damn hard writing.  ~Nathaniel Hawthorne

Words - so innocent and powerless as they are, as standing in a dictionary, how potent for good and evil they become in the hands of one who knows how to combine them.  ~Nathaniel Hawthorne


Writing is utter solitude, the descent into the cold abyss of oneself.  ~Franz Kafka

Life can't ever really defeat a writer who is in love with writing, for life itself is a writer's lover until death - fascinating, cruel, lavish, warm, cold, treacherous, constant.  ~Edna Ferber, A Kind of Magic, 1963

Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness.  One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand.  ~George Orwell, "Why I Write," 1947 

Comments

  1. I can so relate to this post! Writing is a need, an urge that I simply can’t explain!It gives me an indescribable high !
    Such a lovely idea – That journal for your kids ! I am off to see the match too. I hope we win !

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  2. When i was in school i used to write journal of the daily happenings in school...my interests, my feelings...
    Writing truly helps you to vent your feelings...which sometimes you can't share with anyone!!
    Hmmmm the match is becoming interesting....lets hope we bring the cup!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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  3. Oh Preety, you flatter me! I am blushing...

    I think you might like this piece by Pico Iyer:

    http://www.shambhalasun.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2848&Itemid=0

    Also, I think Stephen King said it all: "I write to find out what I think."

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  4. Hi,
    I am new follower of your blog. It is wonderful piece of art. I would like to write like you, but i am not that good at writing and in english. But i love to write.. This post is sure encouraging me a lot.

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  6. Hi preethi,

    when I find that extra time, I will read your old posts. Your view on Time management sounds interesting and resemebles mine. Though with a two year old , a routine schedule is a needed for me to keep the calmness in our life.

    Sent you an email three weeks back. If you haven't seen it check your junk mail

    ReplyDelete
  7. Charu: Please do resend. I get more than hundred emails in a day.Very difficult to track down one particular email unless i know the email id or the subject.

    Whoaml: Welcome to my blog! Keep writing, keep reading. Your English seems just fine to me!

    Agnes: Welcome to my virtual space. You do deserve all the praise.The link you gave made wonderful reading.Thank you!

    Gayu: We won we won won!!! :)

    Ruch:Same pinch---and we won!! What a match!

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  8. As usual a lovely post:-))!!! Have to agree with u about Agnes's blog...on the surface its all casual but at odd moments they come back to me & and makes complete sense. Have u read her 'Blog as if nobody's reading'[I cant be sure its the exact words]....good stuff I tell ya;-D

    @Agnes: I love u too but then u already know tht;-D!!!!

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  9. Buh. I average 3-4 posts per month. But I do write in a journal regularly so I guess that counts!

    I LOVE those notebooks! And the hand written books for your children is such a beautiful thing!

    You teach me so much through your posts.
    Absolutely LOVED the quotes in the end. Copy-pasting them all!
    Am doing the bi-weekly post thng like you did some time back. Will write the first post soon and link back :)

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  10. Easy reading is damn hard writing. ~Nathaniel Hawthorne - so true, nah?

    lovely lovely post as usual...so many things made
    sense...

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  11. I could very well relate to this post.Yes writing is obsession.Though i don't blog much, i write a lot in my small notebooks. There is always one beside me in my bed too :)

    And the journals for Atul and Purvi they are going to treasure it for lifetime.It's going to be their best gift.

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  12. Sundari: Same pinch! Yes--both of them do love their books. (they know about it :) )

    Suma:Thank u thank u :)

    Sucheta:Thanks! Of course writing in journals count :)

    Reflections: You picked out the exact post from her blog that I like! Yes indeed that is said so well.

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  13. Lovely quotes and yes, writing is a must-do for those who are in the habit. I write journals and diaries, and am so used to jotting down that i get wild when theres a lapse. Thats a lovely idea to give your children a journal filled with li'l incidents that they may not even remember as adults...that will surely bring a smile on the lips everytime they read it:))
    Loved your earlier post on time managment too. Somehow, couldnt open Agnespages link. will try again later.

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