Log in and blog on

Khaleej Times (Issues) / 1 June 2013

 

Although the Web log made its entry into the world of the tech savvy geeks in the late 90s and crept into the creative toolbox of the literati in the early 2000s, it was much later that blogging found a place in my life.

 By the time I adopted it as an effective medium to transmit my creative produce to a world that I naively believed was waiting to gorge on my words, it had become such a popular phenomenon that anyone who could log in could just blog in. As a juvenile user tickled by the prospect of plugging all that I punched into my Word file into the world, I revelled in it, going on a non-stop writing spree.

Time was when my writing was greatly over-shadowed by the certainty of rejection. Days were when the process of writing involved hours of hunching over the writing pad, racking brains, scratching head and chewing the pen. As a wannabe journalist just out of college, writing was a passion that stayed confined to the above antics that typified a struggling writer. When a piece reached a point from where it could no more be improved with my modest mental resources and half-bloomed literary flair, it was sent out to a newspaper or magazine, which promptly attached a regret slip and sent it back to me in my ‘self addressed, stamped envelope”. The regret slips grew in number, owing to either my incompetence as a writer or to the publications’ disconnect with a wildling with no creative spark.

Rejection is a crushing experience, in matters of literary pursuit as in matters of the heart, but if it impales you to the point of bleeding from your vital spirits, then it spells definite doom. I must have been plain lucky to not get sapped by the constant rebuttal. I continued to juggle with words and thoughts, frolicking in my passion like tree sparrows in spring. I found a new joy in dancing like no one is watching. The audience that posted regret slips became non-existent to me and I indulged in literary capers that were largely liberated from apprehension of failure and anticipation of success. Writing for no one was like winking in the dark, someone remarked. It wasn’t easy to not let myself be impacted by the futility of my endeavours, but I stayed at it, happy to just wink in the dark.

Years later when a book was ready, the demons of rejection re-entered my life. “Good stuff, but not for us,” was the common refrain of the publishing bosses. There is no way one can fathom the reasons for rejection in any given domain of our life; one can only put it down to the misalignment of stars. Tagging anything else to it – incompetence, injustice or prejudice — can be defeatist. Self-doubt is equal to atheism and can stunt you for life.

Eventually, when the book materialised after jostling though the odds, it felt like having touched the finish line after a marathon. The delight was of having completed an arduous task. Winning or losing was inconsequential.

Then the blogs made their grand entry, opening up exciting prospects. Writers from the creative camps around the world came out of their MS Word clinks and went into a celebratory mode. You didn’t need publishing bosses to assess your aptitude or a rejection slip to dismiss your skills anymore. If you had it in you, you could write and get the universe to follow you.

Things are only getting better. It doesn’t take two to tango anymore. You can go it alone and get your book out there with E-book self-publishing tools. You can pick your latent talent and just ‘kindle’ it! There is one story every man can write — his own. And in the new Web world, there is no room for regrets and rejections.