The struggle to write continues!

 10 years ago when I started blogging, I did not know what writing meant to me. 

That was good. It helped me to explore writing and explore a part of me with every post I dared to publish.

I had a wonderful time blogging about anything that floated in my mind. Stories, thoughts, jokes. There were no expectations from others or from myself.

But after about 3 years of blogging and over 15 stories, I suddenly felt I wanted to be a published writer. 

I don't know why I wasn't happy with publishing on the blog and with the little audience I had developed over time and why I wanted more. 

A friend who I didn't like much told me I was wasting my time on the blog as I wasn't earning anything through it. These are the geniuses who should be shot dead! It's because of characters like these that creative people suffer! 

As it is, publishing what you write isn't an easy task. It keeps getting difficult with age and the gap between your last published material and the current one. The last thing we writers need is an idiot giving us the wrong advice at a time when we are vulnerable.

And I don't know any writer or creative fellow who isn't vulnerable when it comes to his creativity!

We all are!

Anyway, it's not her I should blame but myself. 

I stopped blogging after she told me that. 

Someone else told me I should seriously start publishing my stories as in write a book. The point I missed in that advice was to keep writing regularly so that some day I would have enough material to publish.

The conclusion of all that advice was that I stopped writing completely. I wanted to earn money for every word I wrote and I wouldn't write for free.

Anyway, as the cliche goes, let bygones be bygones.

It's been 3 years since I took a break from work to write my first book.

I haven't got too far with it.

I used every easy strategy writers are known to use to be writers! Alcohol, tobacco, drugs, sex and heart break! Nothing worked.

It's only now that I have started using the real strategies. 

Discipline- focus- dedication.

A deep urge to improve the craft, read more, write more and publish more, no matter what the publishing tool. 

Today, I don't know whether I want to publish a book. 

All I do know is , I still love to write.

And that's good enough to get started.