The Biggest Secret of Writing

I'm going to reveal a big secret, perhaps the biggest of all. It's as sharp and tingly as a slap in the face, it's simply this: Writing is not writing. "Eh?" You gasp, "Zahid's lost it this time. He's joined the Circus of the Lunatics". Let me explain. Writing is not about taking a pen in your hand and writing. Writing is not about sitting in front of a PC and typing. Writing is not about sitting with a Dictaphone and speaking out your thoughts. Writing is the process by which you fling your imagination into the real world. In fact, some...

The W Spot

I am a firm believer that Writer's Block doesn't exist. Or rather, I choose to believe it doesn't. However, that's only partially true: it's true for me, but it might not be for you. Like many things, it's all about your state of mind. If I could guarantee that with the click of your fingers you could hit that zone inside yourself, that prefect place where writing is born, unleashed all by itself you'd bite my right arm off. And like the best...

Tolstoy vs Dostoyevsky

They say that the novel is dead. I don't think that's true. However, I think it is acutely accurate that the novels which writers like Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky wrote won't be written again. Charles Dickens, Marcel Proust, strong and distinctive voices of the past, will forever resound in our ears and their tales will flicker into life on our television screens. But those works will not be repeated. I am a passionate reader. Sometimes it hurts that...

Pen or Keyboard?

Before the advent of the typewriter and way before the PC, writers wrote with pens and pencils and everything was simple. Now you there is a plethora of software and geeky devices to help catalyse the writing process. So much easier you'd think and yet oddly so much harder. So which is it to be: pen or keyboard? Let me tell you what I've gleaned from fellow writers. I've heard virtually every variation beneath the heavens: Some write and rewrite longhand and and then pass their musings to a typist Some write their first draft longhand and then...