Editor's Block

(This post was the result of straight two years' of editorial experience. It deals with the main reason for not able to post more often. The new name for the blog is, to some extent, influenced by this post as well.)

"Journalism is literature in hurry." That's one of the reasons why I had always considered it as my first step towards becoming a writer. However, circumstances beyond my control had landed me in the seat of an editor, which now prevents me from writing a single page without thinking about the subject and language.

My job requires me to act as the prism through which an author's creativity has to pass through to get the ooolalalas of the audience. In other words, I interrupt the communication between the author and muse so that we can position the product that ensures maximum return for the company. And I must add this that I am quite good at it (that's what my boss says...seldom you hear such things from boss...don't you ;) ).

While I rejoice over this, I also mourn the fact that my editorial experience stands between me and my dream to become a writer. Writing has no longer remained simple working around the idea...or questions pertaining to developing that idea... As soon as the idea dawns, the mind gets divided in two halves. The writer's half wants to see its workings on paper, while the editor's is editing it at the same time. This results in repetitive modifications and deletions happening simultaneously leaving my mind worked up and a sense of failure seeps in. Its very difficult to be working as TS Eliot and Ezra Pound on Wasteland at the same time. (Pound had edited the draft of Eliot's Wasteland.)

Writer's block is a condition, primarily associated with writing as a profession, in which an author loses the ability to produce new work. In this case, there is no scarcity of idea or communication problem between the muse and the soul invoking her or lack of motivation. Its the intervention of editorial experience that results in zero output or one rambling in ten days.