Righting the write way

humour

For some days now, yours truly has been staring at the laptop screen, hoping a miracle will make the fingers waltz on the keyboard to create wonderful prose. Come (or rather don’t) any working day between 10 am and 2 pm to see for yourself.

I can sing as longingly (after tweaking the lyrics), “There must be some word today, from an editor so far away...” as Karen Carpenter in her popular Please Mr Postman sings, when I check my inbox. No replies from the magazines to which I’ve sent my stories.

Instead, banks tell me complicated means of saving money; housing companies declare that swanky apartments are up for grabs; online stores pitch ‘discounted’ wares (with unchanged prices); or it’s the mysterious philanthropist asking for my banking details for him to transfer a jackpot of a million dollars I have “won”. I must have entered the contest either in a drunken stupor or when asleep. Blame the broadband connection if I then dejectedly hunt inspirational quotes and wallpapers on writing, even as the blinking cursor taunts me from a blank page.

But I bustle around that Monday by getting together a high tea of delectable cakes, pastries and goodies. A special vehicle lands on my terrace around 10 in the morning, bringing the queen of crime writing, Agatha Christie, and famed author Virginia Woolf. Simultaneously, the door of a grand limousine bangs impatiently and in walks Stephen King, the master of thrillers. He looks shaken by his two-hour drive from the airport.

We reach my writing nook and close the door. The windows need to be shut to keep the noise and smoke where they belong, outside. We sit around my writing table to figure out why the wonderful prose isn’t happening. I worry that they are used to huge houses and rolling gardens. But they don’t seem to mind. They smile kindly while I stare at the blinking cursor.

King begins, “Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration; the rest of us just get up and go to work.”

My fingers start to type out a story on my laptop .They watch and read along silently. My teen knocks respectfully and asks me if she can have a quick bath in the attached bathroom. I nod. Woolf states calmly while she looks around my bedroom, “A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.”

Christie looks at my laptop doubtfully, saying, “I don’t think necessity is the mother of invention. Invention arises directly from idleness, possibly also from laziness — to save oneself trouble.”

King, who continues to read, shakes his head disapprovingly, “The road to hell is paved with adverbs,” as my story has crowded in too many characters. “Kill your darlings, kill your darlings, even when it breaks your egocentric little scribbler’s heart, kill your darlings,” he adds.

I have answered the calling bell thrice: A parcel with a wrong addressee, a water purifier salesman, and the distraught maid who begged leave. But when I rise again to answer my phone, King says, “When you sit down to write, write. Don’t do anything else except go to the bathroom, and do that only if it absolutely cannot be put off.”

We share refreshments when I finish writing at 2 pm. Taking leave, Christie says, with a twinkle in her eyes, looking at the loaded kitchen sink, “The best time to plan a book is while you’re doing the dishes.” I dip the scrubber in soapy water and set to work even as the vehicle with the great ladies lifts off the terrace, and the limousine drives away.

I chew my lower lip, lost in my thoughts. Why did Christie mysteriously add, ‘Never do anything yourself that others can do for you’?