Breaking my Blocks in Writing a Blog!

When I was told every JSWF Fellow should write a blog as part of the fellowship mandate, I wasn’t happy. So much so that I kept postponing my indulgence in the art of writing a blog for nearly 3 months. Unlike me, there were few of my fellows, who enthusiastically wrote 2-3 blogs in the last quarter. I wondered what made them write so much and so fast, while I was on the opposite side of this river of writing. I decided to set sail to cross the river, because of our facilitator’s deadline (Of course, she is sweet. It’s people like me who made her set a deadline). 

Coming to think of it, the mandate of writing a blog must have made me rejoice, because I had completed my graduation in visual communication with my professor’s particular regard for my skill in scriptwriting and worked as a content writer. However, I wasn’t thrilled. I kept making faces and declaring my disinterest in writing an article every month, whenever the topic came up. I was being a rebel with no cause but powered by utter laziness. But, I wasn’t the only one who did not write. I had company. Company of nearly 15 co-fellows, but of course with varied responses for the same question – ‘Why are you not writing the blog?’ 

From my experience, I know that writing or registering one’s thoughts, feelings, experiences, reactions, comments and responses in a journal is a way to keep one’s memories alive. I wanted to try storing my memories in the form of Roman alphabets or the 0’s & 1’s of Google’s hard drive. As the deadline was nearing, I decided to give it a go, with the least amount of interest. I began from the beginning – to let myself completely drown into the process, while trusting the words of the wise to trust the process. 

The first step in my process was to scrap my draft blog article centred on breaking off single stories. You will know why I did that in my next blog article. For now, let me share with you the process of breaking the blocks in writing a blog. After ditching my first draft blog, I decided to look into myself for ideas and the ways in which I can best express them. I have always regarded myself as someone who speaks and expresses less of my thoughts. I always believed that I haven’t achieved enough to share my stories to the world. I also referred to the kind of articles written by my co-fellows. It was all very different in concept, length, number of words, gender of the author and thereby their perspective. That moment, I remembered a session conducted as part of our post-immersion training. The session was about intersectionality and I was virtually witnessing it while reading my friend’s blog posts. 

Ab bohot ho gaya! Mein bhi kuch na kuch likungi. 

Unable to withstand all the motivation within me, I realised I was wrong. I was wrong to say ‘I’m not interested in writing’ or even ‘I don’t care that my co-fellow Vivek Shahare wrote three articles within a quarter only to instigate our facilitator to declare a deadline.’ I was wrong to say that ‘I don’t have enough to share’. I realised that expressing my thoughts and sharing my adventurous experiences matters to me. I decided to unstop me for once and let the stream of words flow and flood the blog page of the iVolunteer website.  

Moving at Godspeed within my head, which contains 350 gms of neural gold capable of creating a parallel world (only to put me in counselling with a psychiatrist), I started pondering upon ‘ideas’- things(intangible) that are born out of our observation, experience, knowledge, perception and sometimes the urge to break the convention. I had so many ideas for a blog article – many were already written upon by other fellows, many were so conventional that I might’ve chosen to stop writing while in the process and few were so boring that you might have not gotten so far. 

I was pushing and prodding my 350 gms neural gold to think out of the small box (containing default blog ideas) placed within the bigger box of ‘staying in context with the fellowship program’. Except for ideas that would either get me unfellowed or land me in creating a parallel universe, nothing happened. I still kept pushing and that’s when my patience prevailed. I stumbled upon a thought of writing on this one – my journey in breaking the blocks in writing a blog. 

Now that I let myself loose, chose to express my thoughts and experiences, and zeroed in on a blog topic, I was wondering about what to write. I began introspecting to understand the process that was going on within me. On closing my eyes, I began to see me walking into the dark tunnel holding a cell phone torch on a cell phone looking for a signal (flow) to connect my ideas. Walking past the memories of the last 6 months etched into the walls of the tunnel in the old rock painting style, I realised two things – one, I’m still a primitive being and that I need to speed up, because all I have is one day to meet the deadline unlike the humongous evolutionary period. 

However, I chose to walk at my pace and hoped to finish writing within the stipulated time. I continued to relish all my memories, forgetting the purpose of my visit to the dark, less frequently visited tunnel of my heart’s memory bank which also had many secret vaults like the vaults of Gringotts (purely a Harry Potter reference). I was there to find inspiration for my blog, to understand how I came from ‘I won’t write a blog’ to ‘I can’t write a blog’ to ‘I might write a blog’ to ‘I have to write a blog’ to ‘I will write a blog’. 

Enjoying my memories in their complete glory, I understood the simplest way to break the blocks in writing a blog, is to simply begin writing or rather scribbling one’s own thoughts. Every single day of our lives is filled with so much joy, laughter, anger, sadness, guilt, regret, achievements, learnings and so many other emotions, that it’s so easy for anyone who’s willing to string their experiences together into a garland of words that can be felt and understood by every soul that wears (reads) it. Not only for others, but for one’s self also, the process of writing will help reminiscing his/her memories. I believe memories are like viruses, inactive until tapped into but very impactful, later on. Here’s to the awakening of my memories and the wonderful beginning of blogging, and much more adventures waiting to be unravelled in this fellowship journey.

Thank you for reading this article and I hope you had a good time!