Me write pretty one day

After finding my day painted pink and yellow in my outlook calendar from morn to night for over a year now, I decided to have just a subtle hint of change to my schedule by joining a creative writing workshop happening every weekend. If you are one of those I have personally met in the last month, it's quite possible that I have already bored you with the stories from my sessions. For the others, the workshop plans to teach the craft behind different forms of writing such as prose, poetry, drama and script writing. It's debatable whether it's worth the hefty fee. But there are three things that I am really glad about.

Firstly, I realize what I don't know. The amount of layering that goes into writing something - right from the level of the plot to the level of sound and syllable - is amazing. It's one thing to take the pen and start writing like I am doing now (which is fine for a brain dump like this). But if you want to achieve a desired effort on a focused piece of writing, it helps to know these tools that help you a little more than superhuman intervention or the auspiciousness of the moment.

This also helps you appreciate anything you read a lot more than what you do now. Suddenly, there's a story behind the choice of every word and every alphabet. Which is better than either an inexpressible feeling in your throat in the end, or the famous 13x256 expression (for the uninitiated, it's the expression on your face when you try multiplying 13 and 256 in your head - an expression that, out of personal experience I can tell you, is very useful) when everyone around you finds the whole piece amazing and you don't have a clue why they find it so. [there's an alternate school of thought against dissecting the word to such chemical basics and destroy the hidden, inexpressible charm (like in love) to which too I concur. But again it's good to know and not get addicted to].

Secondly, is the sheer pleasure of being taught literature. What little joys I've missed in my life! To sit in a classroom while someone's teaching you poetry, and is doing it well, is such an amazing feeling. For that moment you are inside a warp, a colorful bubble, with its walls painted with stories, legends, images and emotions. The feeling of being amidst so much life, so much beauty is something you should experience.

Thirdly, is to listen to writers talk. I was reading Hamlet today and the when introducing the play, the writer says, "Whatever the idea was, we now have only the play, and it's so clear that it becomes mysterious. We do not know why he was created or what he means. We simply and amply perceive that he exists", which is usually the case. We would never be able to know the flash of thought, the depth, the story behind a certain word or line. And so many times it will tauntingly stand out, like a hint that you could never solve or completely comprehend. But sitting with half a dozen writers and listening to them explaining their work, you realize the amount of thought that's gone into every piece. And there it's good to be indulgent and to explain the little easter eggs, those hidden metaphors that you have left in your page long masterpiece for someone to find.

Five more weekends, and I still have prose and script writing to go. The only regret I have is that the classes are too few and far in between. I wait for five working days to go back and be a student again. And when it's one on Sunday afternoon, I know I have to wait again. And suddenly, there's this urge to study every form of art I have enjoyed in the past - acting, direction, music. Because I know there's a void, an entire world within a moment where now I see a blur.