The Write Way to Find your Tribe #acnotes #notetoself

Belonging and being part of a Continent in the age of Islands - a Point of View

“What should young people do with their lives today? Many things, obviously. But the most daring thing is to create stable communities in which the terrible disease of loneliness can be cured.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Palm Sunday: An Autobiographical Collage

We, the bent-neck generation, ought to look up and around at times. We need to see who is around and try to connect if you really intend to. Smiling at a stranger, spreading cheer, being that sunbeam in a gloomy place may seem too cinematic and more apt for a piece of fiction, however here’s an approach we could embrace to engage with the world around without seemingly coming across as too awkward or nosy. Here’s Kurt Vonnegut again to suggest how to go about. This is a letter he wrote to the Students of Xavier High School. Read it leisurely and I will share my take after this letter. If you wish to listen to the same in the legendary voice of the Late James Earl Jones, kindly wait till the end of the post.

From the above-mentioned letter, let’s just take this part:

“. . . Practice any art, music, singing, dancing, acting, drawing, painting, sculpting, poetry, fiction, essays, reportage, no matter how well or badly, not to get money and fame, but to experience becoming, to find out what’s inside you, to make your soul grow.

Contrary to what Kurt suggests in his letter, you still have a choice. Perhaps, practice and share that art with an audience, instead of “tearing it up into teeny weeny pieces”. That’s one way of finding your community, your tribe, to drift your island closer to others to be part of a continent. Need I mention, this post is also my effort to feel belonged among the Bangalore Substackers Collective (however, I couldn’t stick to the word limit). Without digressing too much and sticking to what I believe I do best, I’ll share my two cents on writing. For those who might ask: do you have the authority/permission? Or, maybe their mind voice questions, if I’m qualified to do this? Well, I think I do. And this is where I stop seeking permission.

How to Write

To write, you do not need to come to the realization that if writing is your true calling. You don’t have to ponder, if this is what and why you were put on this planet to do. To be honest, writing needs to be one of the skills akin to reading, regardless of what your age is. And it’s never too late. Reach for a pen/pencil, paper and your brain or heart (or both), and start writing. If you’re the type type, then reach for your laptop or notes app on your smartphone. The way you learn to walk, run, swim or cycle, writing can become a skill that’s part of you, this too could become one. It’s unfortunate that the prominence for reading supersedes that of writing. If you ask me, if you’re a voracious reader, you should be able to write. If you’re not, you still can manage to write, however reading helps finding better words to make your writing read well. Like they say, to write well one needs to read a lot. To read is a good-to-have habit. It’s like how breath control is important for singing, swimming or running?! Well, that more or less how reading aids writing. That said, it’s a topic for another day.

Now let’s get back to writing. We are on a quest to find our tribe. So, without getting distracted, what’s next?

The Right Place, The Right Time - May or may not exist

From one of those writers who inspire me and help me to keep going - Austin Kleon, here comes a blog he wrote in 2016, about The Bliss Station. Read this at leisure. In the same blog, he quotes, Joseph Campbell:

You must have a room, or a certain hour or so a day, where you don’t know what was in the newspapers that morning, you don’t know who your friends are, you don’t know what you owe anybody, you don’t know what anybody owes to you. This is a place where you can simply experience and bring forth what you are and what you might be. This is the place of creative incubation. At first you may find that nothing happens there. But if you have a sacred place and use it, something eventually will happen.

Now that’s one school of thought that helps to start writing. It helps to know there’s you’re devoid of any connection to begin with. That, and a comfortable place you could go back to time, time and again, to pour your heart out. For those who already know about, Morning Pages, that’s a good place to start too. For those who don’t, may I suggest you look up Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way.

Why don’t we write (or why don’t we write more often)

Let me tell you, there’s more than just one point of friction when it comes to writing, as opposed to reading or even doom scrolling. More than effort, writing requires inspiration, focus, time, choicest stationery and some stationary space as well — be it for sitting down or standing to converge your thoughts. All of the aforementioned is part of the whole process. That said, as you go, you would realize some times, there could be one thing that’s missing from the sequence, which in my case, is inspiration.

What to do when there is no Inspiration?

I am reminded of a headline a cousin and his friend came up for a college project -a mock condom ad: “When temptation strikes, a condom would be nice”. I hope it’s okay to lighten up this post a bit instead of a super serious discourse. Now, with all due credit to those two, let’s take some inspiration from that to present my theory: “When inspiration doesn’t strike, just showing up would be nice”. Show up, be present, sit down, take a deep breath and write. Don’t worry what will conjure. Keep at it. Hone your craft on the go. If possible, show up at the same time, every day/every other day and write. Or, write whenever you may, but try to bring back that same focus and attitude while you are at it. Or, take brief pockets of time to do. How? Read on.

The Pomodoro Technique
This is just one of the approaches, feel free to explore and choose what works for you. During the pandemic, I came across an Illustrator on Instagram who would illustrate or sketch daily for 25 minutes and post it on the gram. That nudged me towards my poetry project (which I will be soon publishing as a Ebook and sharing, message or comment if you wish to get one copy). I called it the Pomodoro Poetry Project. Every single day for 25 days straight, in a month, I wrote a poem. Each poem was based on a prompt from The Alipore Post Poetry Month or my own prompts. 25 minutes. Nothing more, nothing less. And I would post it as is some times. At times, I would write in 25 minute slots. While most poems were completed in 25 minutes, some took two slots or three slots of 25 minutes each. This included a bit of editing, image search from unsplash and then posting. Well, I hear you. So, if you’re not into poetry, write some prose for the same time. Write in short bursts. Or, write it part by part and see if there’s a common thread to weave them altogether. If neither works, leave it be, as it is. Needless to say, there were times, I hit a block. This happened quite recently in April 2024. So, what to do when you stumble over the writer’s block.

The Writer’s Block

There is a school of thought that there is no such thing as a Writer’s Block. I first came across this while attending The Creative’s Workshop at Akimbo. The below shared video is an excerpt from that session I attended where he shared the same concept or approach, not exactly in the same words, but it was equally impactful.

I’m guessing you’ve watched the video, if yes, here are the key takeaways which you need to keep in mind:

• Writer’s block hits you when you have the fear of bad writing

• The only way out is though it - do the bad writing
  (however, you don’t have to ship it)

• Eventually, good writing will slip through

• Merely do the work without the (-ve) narrative and drama

• Muse or talent doesn’t really matter

• Choose to find your smallest viable audience (the audience of 1*)

• Understand your genre

• Explore to make magic in the small so you can do it again

Finding your Smallest Viable Audience - The Audience of 1*

At The Creative’s Workshop, one of the most important lessons I learnt which I would never forget is finding your smallest viable audience. In other words, write for the smallest audience who might be interested in reading what you have to write. That could even be for the the audience of 1. To give an example, I came across this core idea, from one of the greatest music composers of this time and age - Hans Zimmer:

So, who are you writing for? Without any exaggeration, I write for myself first. I am the first reader for my work. Of course, at times, that stops me from writing too, since I become my biggest critic, however I’m learning to overlook that at times. If that’s something you relate to, don’t be deterred, with practice, we can still over come it. Now let’s assume we have a picture in mind to whom you write, maybe now, we could start writing to find our tribe.

There’s an old proverb that says you can’t choose your family. You take what the fates hand you. And like them or not, love them or not, understand them or not, you cope. Then there’s the school of thought that says the family you’re born into is simply a starting point. They feed you, and clothe you, and take care of you until you’re ready to go out into the world and find your tribe.

- Written by: Krista Vernoff for Grey’s Anatomy (S 2 : E 12)
Meredith’s Narration in the Episode of Grandma got run over by a reindeer

Oh! And just when you thought, it’s the end of the post, let me tell you about two more things, before I wind up: The Fallow Season and The Manifesto.

The Fallow Season

There’s a time to sow, there’s a time to reap and then there’s a season of fallow.
A fallow season technically refers to that time of the year or maybe a bit after the harvest when the land is left without sowing or uncultivated for its soil to regenerate its nutrients. Similarly, we all go through one or more fallow seasons. During this time, never forget to being kind to yourself. This is the time, you do nothing, and more importantly you don’t feel guilty for not being productive. In other words, this is the time you use to recharge. Read, run, take long walks, travel, cook, make collages, write poems that don’t rhyme, listen to music in an unknown language, sit staring at the wall or do what they call rawdogging. Or, better still, go on an Artist’s date.

The Manifesto

What is that one core idea or thought that makes you go back to writing — time, time and again. Write that down. Simply said, it is a motto or belief you hold close to your heart that works like a north star whenever you feel lost and brings you back on track. For instance, here’s mine, which I’ve already shared on an older post.

“I believe that in any creative pursuit, we are in the business of making messages in bottles. You write your heart out, create art , make music or come up with a recipe, or whatever you think your creative calling is. Once done, you gently roll it up, shove it into a bottle, cork it and fling it into the wide blue open. Someday, it will find the marooned and bring them ashore.”

#Credit to Pankaj Singh and Naveed Mulki for their Storytelling Workshop - Two Lines Become Three for guiding me in helping me find this north star I already had but didn’t know what to call it.

Now, perhaps it’s time for you to start writing or it’s your fallow season. No pressure. No matter at what phase of life you are, this is your cue to start or restart. Or, if you’ve come to a screeching halt, this is your sign to recharge and go find your tribe. Especially, at a time when there is a deluge of AI slop posing as someone’s creative effort — here’s me inserting an em dash to say ai be damned. And here’s me taking the liberty to paraphrase** Waltman to nudge you towards the Write side:

**The question, O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid this AI slop of soulless content, synthetic prose, senseless poetry and banal art, and other filler content… O me, O life?

Answer.
That you are here—that life exists and identity,
That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.

Walt Whitman, O Me! O Life!, Leaves of Grass (1892)

Bonus: James Earl Jones reads Kurt Vonnegut’s inspirational letter to a group of students

#acnotes
#notetoself