Hypocritical Genes

I’ve realised that my work genes are hypocrites. I’ve come to this conclusion because while I like how my writing turns out when I’m done, I hate the process of actually sitting down and writing. It’s such a chore!

This is how a typical conversation is inside my head: “I have such a brilliant idea. It would make a fantastic short story. It’ll be so much fun creating it. Oh, yes! But first let me do this other stuff that is not quite as brilliant. Why not write the idea down first? Because I don’t want to. But you just said it would be fantastic! I know, maybe later.”

Therefore, I’m never quite sure whether I love writing or hate it.

If I had a blog entry for every time I wished there was an app that could telepathically translate my thoughts onto paper, I wouldn’t be writing this right now, you wouldn’t be reading it and we would basically be in a parallel universe, but that’s another story.

Back to writing. I do hate it. The whole tedious process of it. This wouldn’t be such a problem if your work didn’t involve churning out words on demand. But mine does. Therefore, a large part of my time goes in coercing myself to get down to writing (which is not an easy task considering one part of me always knows what the other sneaky part of me is trying to make the whole of me do).

I tell myself, let’s just see if I can come up with a sentence on “epigenetics”. Just one sentence. It doesn’t even have to be a good one. And then I’ll stop. So I sit down and write one sentence. Then the editor part of me wakes up and thinks, “What’s the point of writing a sentence that no one will understand? It needs context.” So then I coax myself to look up some facts about epigenetics, which, of course, are horribly complicated. Then I challenge myself to simplify them for whichever unfortunate soul has to read about it. By the time I’m done with all this, I’m exhausted, but finally have the paper dressed in ink (or the Word file dressed in type, same difference).

What I’m saying is that sometimes it’s not just enough to divide your task into smaller chunks. You have to break it into teeny-tiny bite-size pieces that would unsuitable for children under the age of 3.

Have to write an article? Let’s see how quickly I can jot down the key words for it – words, not phrases or sentences. Timer on, 1, 2, 3, go! Then the whole sentence sneakiness begins again. A script? Let’s see if I can describe one character’s breakfast. What did he have for breakfast this morning? Idli, with sambhar but no chutney. What kind of person doesn’t eat chutney? Soon, I have the fellow mapped out.

Actually, the hypocritical DNA is not just biased to writers. I know people who love to see new places, but hate to travel; love new clothes, but hate to shop; love their work, but hate waking up in time for office.

Not able to wake up in the morning? Try just opening your eyes to see what the weather outside the window looks like. Hot. Maybe the floor’s nice and cool. I wonder what it would feel like under my bare feet. Once the sunshine is in your eyes, and your feet on the floor, your body will do the rest and jolt you out of stupor in no time.

Can’t get yourself to exercise? How about you just put on a tracksuit and sneakers and check yourself out in the mirror? Put on some music while you’re at it. That’s it. Forget about the exercise for the moment. This could go two ways. Either the athletic feel of the clothes, sneakers and music get you going. Or the sight of unwanted bulges makes you rush out to get rid of them. Either way, you’re set.

Distracting yourself with computer games while you should be asking your resume? Imagine you’re out with a hot date and telling him/her about (the real) you. You’ll have your career graph charted out in no time.

No matter how smart we think we are, we can always figure out ways to fool ourselves to get down to doing what we should be doing in the first place. Which is actually quite smart, come to think of it.

Feel free to share your special ways of dealing with your hypocritical genes. And let me know if there’s any way I can help.