On Writing (and reading)

I want to write. I want to be a writer. You cannot be a writer without getting into the habit of writing, unsurprisingly enough. So I am starting this journal as an exercise.

I read Stephen King’s “On Writing” ages ago, and was greatly impressed by the simplicity with which he approached the art of writing. I started reading it again today, I feel I need the encouragement again. There was a time when I used to blog and that kept me in the writing habit. Unfortunately, like so many other things, that habit has been lost in the daily grind.

Coming back to ‘On Writing’, one thing that is so impressive about Mr King is his unassuming nature. He does not start lecturing the reader like a professor or an expert in his field to a novice. There’s none of the I-know-how-this-is-done-so-you-better-pay-attention stuff. The first thing he does is write a memoir, childhood memories, and lovely little anecdotes, some of them fairly creepy too – like the one about the nanny. He calls this section his C.V., as if he needs to prove his writing chops! And I think this is his charming way to do two things – firstly, show the reader how its done, rather than telling her how its done. Because even if you have never read a single word from Mr King’s numerous, giant bestsellers, these anecdotes sufficiently prove his skill in the form. He is effortless in evoking a vivid picture of his childhood, living with his single mom and brother and spending time with his several aunts. The second one of the things Mr King is demonstrating here is that great writing doesn’t need to be complex, full of heavy words. Of course, a good vocabulary is critical to be a writer but don’t over say it. Unless it adds to the idea you want to express of course. But he does not want to portray writers who do use more weighty language as pretentious. I think there will be more on this further into the book, which I don’t recall at the moment.

Maybe there is a third point too. Maybe all writing needs to be personal.

Reading this section of the book reminded me of my own childhood, and got me thinking about the beginning of my reading habit. In 1986 we moved to Kalyan, a medium sized town outside of Mumbai, and there, at the age of 10, I discovered the first library I had ever seen. It does not match any image of a library that the word concocts in our mind. It was not much more than a tiny store, but it was chock full of books and that was enough. The owner and one helper operated this tiny library, and they had a neat little indexing system which helped them quickly locate the books you asked for. You looked through a stack of hand-written lists which had the books name, the author and an index number. There was always a little crowd in front of the shop, and these index cards would be shared by everyone. When you finished browsing through a card, you passed it to someone else in the crowd and exchanged it for the card he was browsing. The catalogue definitely leaned towards the more popular, but had enough variety that kept me a loyal subscriber for years. Frankly, it was quaint, but I still remember it fondly. Starting with Enid Blyton’s Famous Five and Secret Seven and other books, moving on to the Hardy Boys adventures, and then to Agatha Christie. Then on to Stephen King, Robert Ludlum as well as Salman Rushdie, Martin Amis and many others. I would sometimes ask the owner’s opinion on a book, and he was knowledgeable enough to be able to provide a short but generally useful comment. He was also partly open to suggestions of books to add to the library, but economics was definitely a consideration.

Libraries like the Just Books franchises or even book stores nowadays don’t have the same personal touch to them. You browse the shelves, sometimes you find books incorrectly categorized and kept in the wrong sections. The knowledgeable book store or library worker does not exist anymore. The little library in Kalyan was called Shree Ganesh Vachnalaya (Library), named after the same god that so many small businesses name themselves after, hoping that Lord Ganesha, the remover of obstacles will bring them luck. But though very commonly used by completely unrelated small businesses, Shree Ganesh is a much more apt name for a library, as the elephant headed god is also considered a fount of knowledge, the god of intellect and wisdom as well as a patron of arts. This seems to me a much more meaningful association of names.

Out of curiosity, I googled Shree Ganesh Vachnalaya and was overjoyed to see that it still exists. I wish great success to them, and I hope the kids of Kalyan are utilizing this unique service.