So You Want To Become A Writer | Teen Ink

So You Want To Become A Writer

October 27, 2019
By Veerangana DIAMOND, New Delhi, Other
Veerangana DIAMOND, New Delhi, Other
95 articles 0 photos 22 comments

Favorite Quote:
"Grind the grind before the grind grinds you"


Dear Young Writer,

I write this letter to you, not as someone who is superior to you, but as someone who has been through all that you are about to go through, the moment that you commit pen to paper, and decide that the writing-desk, old notebooks, folded-up poems, and ink-stained fingers are going to be components of your Universe, or to be more specific, components of you. First and foremost, welcome, welcome to our lot, labelled as ''crazy'' and ''depressed'' by our immediate society, but loved immensely by those who matter. Before you step into our world, I want you to leave the reins that help you control your heart. Let your expectation grow so, so big, that it overtakes you. Shed all your superficiality, and reduce yourself to the simple definition of who you essentially are, and do not try to introduce yourself as the person you can never be. We, writers, are smart people. We can see through all the masks, no matter how well they have been carved. And, you know what? All of us out here, we know how to love. It's just that, you'll have to love us back. 

 

Get used to falling in love. And, not just with people. Of course, if you are a girl, you are bound to fall in love with a boy, and if you are a boy, you are bound to fall in love with a girl, but when I talk about falling love, I mean to say -- that you will start falling in love with the moon, with the stars, with the earth under your feet. Your mind and your heart will start having wrestling matches in the sands of your soul, and you will find your mind being squashed between the feet of your heart. You will start feeling, and feeling everything so deeply, tears will come so easily to your eyes. The world will call you sensitive, and you must take that as a compliment. But, the thing is, every little thing will make you cry.

Soon, you will find yourself feeling as though you have been drugged. Your heart will turn into the cauldron of an enchantress, bubbling with something or the other, some idea, some free-verse, some two-liner, and oh, the agony that you will endure if you don't put it onto paper right away. If you are in school, your academics will suffer. You will place blank papers beneath your school books, and write poetry between classes. Before exams, you will just have to give perfect shape to that portion of a story, simply because it will become so important to you. It will become an addiction, a dangerous addiction that no rehab centre in this world will ever be able to cure. And, once you've put down a large portion on paper, you will feel a nagging prick in the depths of your being, and you'll know, that yet another sapling is poking throug the soils of your heart.

 

And, yes. Speaking of soils --- I must warn you of that wild stallion that is going to dwell within you. Your imagination. You will have to chain him at all times, otherwise he will gallop, and he races faster than the wind. He gallops in all directions, and has this rainbow-coloured horn on the top of his head. He lifts the sky with his horn, kicks the earth aside with his hind-legs, pushes the oceans away his hind legs. But, the stars, the planets, and the moon are scared. The moon settles between his shaggy eyebrows, and the stars and planets form anklets around his hooves. The galaxies thread through his mane. He is the world. But, my dear, do not chain him at all times, otherwise he will start tormenting you. 

 

When you let him loose, he will come to you like an obedient slave, and place a portion of every bit of this Universe at your feet. Spin your poetry out of this shimmering confusion, my dar. Use your words to give it clarity. And, when you do, you will feel a master, a creator. You will feel divine.

After all, you are nothing short of divine.

The divine creates, and so do you.

May your muse never leave you,

A Well Wisher 


The author's comments:

From a writer, to a writer. 


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