"Nothing stinks like a pile of unpublished writing."
~ Sylvia Plath
Just when I was submitting a creative writing assignment yesterday, something hit me with a quiet yet brutal force. Why is it so hard to believe in oneself? This question does not just ring in my doubt-prone ever fretting head, but the each one of us who has tried to be creative in whichever way. There are times when we just fall flat on our faces refusing to get up. But then we always do, for so huge is the urge to carry on, on this never-ending journey of dejection and lucklessness. The in-between moments, the ones between applaud and despair, are the ones where we question, fear and sometimes lose all hope. For someone like me who suffers from chronic pessimism, that 'sometimes' becomes most of the times. I don't know how good or bad a writer I am (or if I am a 'writer' at all!), but I do want to be someone some day. Even if it is through just one story. Just once. Thus the battle must continue, for how long who can say.
A tiny fragment from a lost moment (it just flew in while I was halfway my rant!):
"She was late that day. Again. Bus no. 256 had left. For someone as blindly confident as a race horse when amid friends, she often found herself miserably vulnerable in such situations. Standing neat in a cerulean dress and black heels, she could sense her flagging self clam up like a morning glory at night. The bus would not be here before another hour. Even the hands of her watch crawled labouriously, ticking reluctantly. Her eager eyes scoured the almost empty bus-stop hoping for someone to appear, for a flicker of that sudden surprise, like a deer appearing on the middle of the road out of green nothingness. She fumbled inside her trendy taupe tote, fidgeting through the tangled mass of keys, Kleenex and cosmetics, fishing out a book. It was a collection of short stories by Margaret Atwood. Books had always comforted her like a mother comforts her bruised child. Words gave her strength, cleared the clutter of emotions in her doubting head. The nagging unease receded into the background like a stale story of the past. She was a lover of words, after all."
