Susmita Paul - Writing across silences

Susmita Paul

A creative writer. A Poet. A Mad-hatter.

“Writing is a struggle against silence” observed Carlos Fuentes.

When his words ring in the ears of the mind, the vision is that of a climber standing at the base camp of the tallest mountain in the world and looking up at the mountain.

Imagine that climber is YOU, the writer.

As you start trekking the mountain, dangerous crevices of void start to appear from nowhere. But then, you re-work your plan and find a way to get to the other side of the void. You lie awake at night as the wind and snow of uncertainty howl outside your tent. But then, you survive the frost bites and the snow-blindness to reach the peak of the tallest mountain in the world. For a climber, every time he goes out to walk across vast expanse of silences to reach the summit where silence is more pronounced, it is an adventurous struggle. Writing too is an adventurous struggle through the silence of our existence in order to find our own voice.

Finding words that grasp what the imagination harbors is a struggle in itself. The struggle is also personal at times. What silence would have kept in the domain of the individual, the written word puts it up-front to a multitude.

For shy writers (they are a strange species who are a cocktail of the introvert social person afflicted with the painful urge to write) of non-fiction, or fictionalized non-fiction, it is a challenge to find the right reason to write about individuals who matter to them. The challenge of writing about the people you love, and whose companionship you cherish, from an objective point of view is like looking up from the base camp and seeing two tall mountains one atop the other.

Being a self-confessed member in this schedule, this writer faces an immense challenge of resolving the conflict between the silences that charter everyday life, and, the words that attempt to harness the chaotic bundle that lies in the crevices of everyday life.

Writing is crossing the soothing pleasure domes that sirens of silence promise. What a writers journeys into on the first attempt is the thresholds of tumultuous creativity. For writers who have taken the adventure the first time, the destination is hopefully an urge to undertake the entire challenge once again.

So, what is the nature of YOUR struggle against silence? Share now and let your fellow writers know they have company in you! 

I look forward to being a regular contributor to the Unofficial Brit Writers' blog : )