- I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.
- Douglas Adams
Writing, whether for a living or for passion involves deadlines. They might be set by an editor or by one self but they nearly always in my own personal case, go by without me being able to perform.
To people this might seem like a lazy joke. Sometimes I am asked to write on one thing or the other but what they do not understand is that I do not control the pen, rather it controls me. There are a myriad of examples out there in our times and before them of people who wrote a single master piece and they could not write any more. I believe it is because their pen had no words left.
Writing is and always will remain a mystery for me. Perhaps in my capacity for words I am over romanticizing the concept, but the reality often stares me in the eye, in the shape of a blank word processor screen. I cannot write on demand! Yes for the longest time I have written direct on the word processor, no drafts no scribblings, my pen seems to have acquired a taste for tech and its exhibitionism for sharing.
It is not a tap I can turn on and off, it is not like an artists brush that once dipped in paint will put something on canvas. The pen writes by itself and often when one is in the oddest of situations. This is why there are several master pieces and plots saved on the back of restaurant tissues by writers worldwide. At times though one can wrest a bit of control from the pen and force it to shut up as one cannot simply write about anything they feel. Societies laws must be observed as well. However even then somewhere in the middle of the night the pen takes back control and writes out the writers insanity in any form that it pleases. Sometimes I cannot stop writing… at times I wish all I could do was write.
The pen i speak of is a writers soul, which consumes motivates and drives him or her, it is the love for the written word which is manifested on paper. It is the exaltation one feels when they see their name in print, it is also what drives writers mad.
I am but a servant of the pen, I am a candle burning at both ends.
