Learning Elvish

DECIPHER THIS
The worst thing about going through one of those phases, which I could call writer’s block if I felt qualified to claim the title of writer, is that it’s not like the thoughts and ideas stop striking you. Or that the urge to write stops bugging you (though it bugs you less often). It’s that the words and sentences don’t flow into your mind – they tumble their way into it. I have no idea what the creative writing process looks like for other writers – but I tend to think in terms of sentences that I tap out on the keyboard not thoughts to convert into sentences that I then put down. Usually a spigot, that gets its word feed from elves living in the gamma wave reaches of my mind, opens up and starts letting words already arranged in fully formed sentences flow onto a mental teleprompter screen. So when my elves go on strike for lack of leisure time they start torturing me by turning the spigot off. Or if they’re terribly annoyed with me, by turning it on but sending through a welter of words – a jumbled mass of proto-sentences that can look like a hopeless, mangled, tangle of wool instead of the lovely, silvery, wavy thread of type that I usually see.

You may wonder, dear reader, why I bother to write at all in those phases? I usually don’t. But the blocks seem to come more often and last longer. Since writing is one of the things that makes me happy I’m trying to actively find a way past them. One way is to become better at untangling wool…something that, taking the adage Practice makes Perfect to heart, I’m hoping to do by just writing more regularly. Over time I shall hopefully be able to write passably, even when my creative (s)elves are speaking gibberish…umm Elvish… to me. Those damn elves are almost certainly as moody as I am and even if I gave in to their demand for a better health plan today (e.g., more quiet time)*, they would find a new reason to be miffed every now and then.

So you may see more posts, some of which may not meet your high standards for what can be classified as an interesting read. Indulge me, dear reader, and blame those – at least in the medium term - on the fact that I’m still learning Elvish – and while I’m learning, something is bound to be lost in translation.

Interrogation Under Pressure

No, Its not about how the US does not torture anyone, Anywhere.

So I cannot for the life of me decide, dear reader, whether the best way to refer to my pal Robin RedBreast in any future posts is Robin R. or R. RedBreast. You remember Robin (Mile High Vipassana). He, of the chirpy demeanour, who when sitting across you at a restaurant table, cracking a joke and shaking with laughter brings to mind a brightly hued songbird hopping happily on a branch outside your bedroom window. Think of that picture and tell me, whats the more fitting appellation?

Robin R. might be more appropriate given that he's from South India, all the way from Thammizh Naadh in fact. Please note the high levels of PC - phonetic correctness - achieved by this blog just then. But then RedBreast is just a qualifier not the name of his village-well. So I guess that can't be the source of his last initial.

So maybe R. RedBreast is better? It has the advantage of following a naming convention familiar to both Western and Indian readers and also fits the criteria of maintaining a degree of anonymity, which is a rather inconsistently observed piece of blogging etiquette. I think its also more visually evocative of that brightly hued bird I was talking about. Hmmm... So unless there's a massive demand for using Robin R. with a similarly well thought out rationale behind it, R. RedBreast it shall be.

And in case you're wondering what caused me to inflict this perhaps surprising question on you...feel free to claim all credit for yourselves, dear demanding reader. In the past few weeks I've been gratified to have received many more comments about my posts, than I usually do. Both on and off the blog. Of course some of these have been actually by me responding to other comments. But then, hamaare Bihar main, ballot-box stuffing is a time-honoured ritual.

But some of you have been rather demanding..."Where's Tokyo Take II" asked someone. "Do another city", said another, briefly giving me visions of being expected to change my name to Debbie and booking the next SouthWest flight to Texas.

This tells you a few things about me -
a) I like getting comments about my posts (on the blog is better than off it, though I'll take whatever I can get :)
b) I'm easily pleased and have a very American attitude where feeling successful about my blog is concerned. (If my readership goes from 1 to 2, well then, I just doubled my readership! Random House here I come.)
c) I sometimes babble under stress

Stress? You ask.

Uhuh. I fully intended to write a Take II on Tokyo and about other cities that have affected me - almost universally positively (probably a function of lowered expectations due to our celebrated Metropolis In The East). However the last couple of days when I've sat down to compose a coda to Cape Town or a panegyric to Paris, my synapses have refused to fire.

Yes. I'm forced to confess. I have a block...not a writer's block for I do not deserve (yet?) to suffer from that lofty aspirational affliction. Just a simple block. And while I've tried to fight it the last couple of days, to write something that might satisfy your ravenous hunger for all things written by me, it doesn't work...The thoughts and feelings refuse to morph into prose. And so I have decided, I shall wait for it to dissolve. By itself. In the meantime, do excuse me while I go listen to Queen vocalizing my distress.