Then as now, I struggle to stick to one thing. This is true of a single activity such as writing - I'll have something specific in mind when I start, but digress sooner rather than later and end up writing something else entirely that has no connection whatsoever with the start (and, often, the title, which I would have thought up at the outset). But this is truer still when it comes to a combination of multiple activities. Like, while writing something, I'll want to check something. Often, it's online, so I'll open a new tab and look that thing up. Only, that one thing will lead me to another thing and another and then another and so on and so forth until I am thinking of a way to backtrack and get back to what I started out to do in the first place, but I am unable to do so because each of those tabs seem to contain something interesting, some for the future, but some for the now, more interesting than what got me started off on that path even.
At times like these, limitations help (and right now I am fighting off a strong urge to start talking about having far fewer choices up until the first few years after neoliberalisation). So, when my browser has too many tabs open, what comes to my rescue is the limited hardware configuration of my laptop or whatever system I'm currently working on. Mostly, it's the RAM that first groans before it finally gives up. If, in between the groaning and the giving up, I can quickly bookmark or otherwise save all the links, perhaps even close a few unnecessary tabs, well and good. Otherwise, the crash is unexpected - and the thing about anything unexpected is it invariably always happens while one is doing something of critical importance (of course, I only realise its critical importance after I am forced to abandon the task for a while). So the best option for me is to take the groaning as a hint.
Before the tabbed browsing era (yes, there was a time like that), the only option was to open a new window for each new thing that I wanted to check out, which put an even greater strain on the system resources. And if I recall correctly, unlike now, when I can reopen the browser and restore all tabs with a single click, there was no easy way of doing so (I could go to History and work my way backwards, but that was just too tedious). Besides, system back then had even more limited resources - the RAM norm back then, for instance, was not 4GB but 512MB. So I did the only reasonable thing - kept the number of windows down to a minimum, and kept closing whichever ones I was done with.
Procrastinatory diversions weren't always online. I could be looking for something saved somewhere, which now is like look for a needle in multiple haystacks - one of multiple 1TB portable drives, or one of the laptops, each with its own 1TB hard drive. Things were simpler when there was a single haystack - a single desktop with a 40GB drive. But procrastinatory diversions often can and do take me to a pre-digital India, and that's a rabbit hole that's hard to climb out of. So, just yesterday, I was writing (or at least trying to write) about how and when I started reading. Before I knew it, I had dug out every old book (and the odd notebook and diary) that was still lying around somewhere in some obscure corner of our home.
Now I had, until a certain point in time (10th boards, the reason for which could have simply been the fact that I stopped reading) a habit of religiously writing down my name inside every book ever acquired, along with the date of acquisition. So the next logical step, of course, was to make a list of all the books with these details written inside, to be used as ready reference, sorted in chronological order and perhaps typed and stored in an online spreadsheet (note to self - that's a good idea). Needless to say, I am yet to finish writing about when and how I started reading.
Also needless to say, the thing I originally started off writing about was something else entirely. That sort of focus is harder to achieve - no laptop with limited RAM or desktop with limited storage or lack of childhood and teenage artefacts scattered about the home are ever going to come to my rescue. What has helped in the past is being paid to write, because said payment comes with briefs attached. So whenever I actually sat down to write a news story, I'd similarly struggle, but ultimately I'd get to the point, so whatever I had written earlier would either be incorporated in the final draft, or saved for later, or discarded. And the title (the headline, rather) would be given right at the end, often on the page just before its release (I am assuming this is self-explanatory and not technical).
That sort of discipline is hard to impose while blogging. Sure, there might be an audience, but the audience feels secondary. Primarily, it seems to me that I'm writing for myself. Occasionally, if I feel like going public, anyone who is interested is free to read my posts, even leave comments. But the writing, that's entirely my prerogative. So, incoherent thoughts in no discernible sequence could be typed out and upload just like that. Except, that wasn't entirely the case during my original 2006-10 stint. I guess I was confused back then - do I write only for myself, or do I write in order to be read and establish myself as a writer?
Even then, it wasn't so simple - even if I decided to write keeping an audience in mind, writing was just the first (and perhaps easiest) step. I had to write at the correct frequency - often but not too often. And I had to seek out many other bloggers who wrote just as regularly and read and comment on each and every one of their posts. Then, if things clicked, the move upwards - up the blog roll of similarly obscure bloggers, up the hierarchy, first from obscurity to the notice of celebrity bloggers, then from the blogging fraternity to journalism and, finally, writing.
Needless to say, things don't click - there are scores of factors at play, most of which I'm still unaware of. In any case, my move was from obscure blogger to obscure magazine reporter-sub editor, by which time I had just about had enough of the blogosphere. Now, having been a nondescript reporter-sub editor at a far-from-obscure newspaper and a not-so-obscure website and given up on that jump from journalism to writing, I am back to the blogosphere. But even after a decade and a half, the song remains the same. Whom do I write for?
At times like these, limitations help (and right now I am fighting off a strong urge to start talking about having far fewer choices up until the first few years after neoliberalisation). So, when my browser has too many tabs open, what comes to my rescue is the limited hardware configuration of my laptop or whatever system I'm currently working on. Mostly, it's the RAM that first groans before it finally gives up. If, in between the groaning and the giving up, I can quickly bookmark or otherwise save all the links, perhaps even close a few unnecessary tabs, well and good. Otherwise, the crash is unexpected - and the thing about anything unexpected is it invariably always happens while one is doing something of critical importance (of course, I only realise its critical importance after I am forced to abandon the task for a while). So the best option for me is to take the groaning as a hint.
Before the tabbed browsing era (yes, there was a time like that), the only option was to open a new window for each new thing that I wanted to check out, which put an even greater strain on the system resources. And if I recall correctly, unlike now, when I can reopen the browser and restore all tabs with a single click, there was no easy way of doing so (I could go to History and work my way backwards, but that was just too tedious). Besides, system back then had even more limited resources - the RAM norm back then, for instance, was not 4GB but 512MB. So I did the only reasonable thing - kept the number of windows down to a minimum, and kept closing whichever ones I was done with.
Procrastinatory diversions weren't always online. I could be looking for something saved somewhere, which now is like look for a needle in multiple haystacks - one of multiple 1TB portable drives, or one of the laptops, each with its own 1TB hard drive. Things were simpler when there was a single haystack - a single desktop with a 40GB drive. But procrastinatory diversions often can and do take me to a pre-digital India, and that's a rabbit hole that's hard to climb out of. So, just yesterday, I was writing (or at least trying to write) about how and when I started reading. Before I knew it, I had dug out every old book (and the odd notebook and diary) that was still lying around somewhere in some obscure corner of our home.
Now I had, until a certain point in time (10th boards, the reason for which could have simply been the fact that I stopped reading) a habit of religiously writing down my name inside every book ever acquired, along with the date of acquisition. So the next logical step, of course, was to make a list of all the books with these details written inside, to be used as ready reference, sorted in chronological order and perhaps typed and stored in an online spreadsheet (note to self - that's a good idea). Needless to say, I am yet to finish writing about when and how I started reading.
Also needless to say, the thing I originally started off writing about was something else entirely. That sort of focus is harder to achieve - no laptop with limited RAM or desktop with limited storage or lack of childhood and teenage artefacts scattered about the home are ever going to come to my rescue. What has helped in the past is being paid to write, because said payment comes with briefs attached. So whenever I actually sat down to write a news story, I'd similarly struggle, but ultimately I'd get to the point, so whatever I had written earlier would either be incorporated in the final draft, or saved for later, or discarded. And the title (the headline, rather) would be given right at the end, often on the page just before its release (I am assuming this is self-explanatory and not technical).
That sort of discipline is hard to impose while blogging. Sure, there might be an audience, but the audience feels secondary. Primarily, it seems to me that I'm writing for myself. Occasionally, if I feel like going public, anyone who is interested is free to read my posts, even leave comments. But the writing, that's entirely my prerogative. So, incoherent thoughts in no discernible sequence could be typed out and upload just like that. Except, that wasn't entirely the case during my original 2006-10 stint. I guess I was confused back then - do I write only for myself, or do I write in order to be read and establish myself as a writer?
Even then, it wasn't so simple - even if I decided to write keeping an audience in mind, writing was just the first (and perhaps easiest) step. I had to write at the correct frequency - often but not too often. And I had to seek out many other bloggers who wrote just as regularly and read and comment on each and every one of their posts. Then, if things clicked, the move upwards - up the blog roll of similarly obscure bloggers, up the hierarchy, first from obscurity to the notice of celebrity bloggers, then from the blogging fraternity to journalism and, finally, writing.
Needless to say, things don't click - there are scores of factors at play, most of which I'm still unaware of. In any case, my move was from obscure blogger to obscure magazine reporter-sub editor, by which time I had just about had enough of the blogosphere. Now, having been a nondescript reporter-sub editor at a far-from-obscure newspaper and a not-so-obscure website and given up on that jump from journalism to writing, I am back to the blogosphere. But even after a decade and a half, the song remains the same. Whom do I write for?
No comments:
Post a Comment