21st July 2013
I had saved Steve Levitan’s writeup here as a word file on
my desktop. I’m a seriously moody reader, but today I finally read it, and I
felt that it was so awesome to read such fresh juicy stuff! Modern Family is
one of my favourite sitcoms, and I had to give it a shot. At the bottom there
was a link and t led to this page, so I ended up reading quite a few ‘Why we
write’ and I decided ‘Hey, I can do this too. If anyone would give me a read!’
The earliest I remember (there must’ve been earlier
instances) being was introduced to writing was in 7th grade. We had
to write comprehensions that we were graded on in English literature. I was
decent with grammar, but I was terrible at writing. Atleast that’s what I
thought and what my marks told me. They focused too much on spellings and
length too, which turned me off from writing whole-heartedly. For obvious
reasons, it never occurred to me that I could ever write professionally.
Art, on the other hand was something that came completely
effortlessly. I would draw on the backs of all my notebooks and texts, and my
teachers would often punish me for it. The forbidden fruit tastes sweetest! It
kept me very distracted and I was always in a world of my own. Art was, and
still is mostly inspired from life, and from literature. I read a lot of
children’s books. I grew up on Enid Blyton and Roald Dahl books. I even made a
few projects on them for school; but I think my life really changed when I read
J.K. Rowling. I grew up with Harry; we were the same age. That world was more
appropriate for me than reality. I loved it, and I lived in it for as long as I
could and dragged a bunch of friends into it with me.
Along with this I watched a lot of cartoons till I was in
college. Everything from Hanna Barbara, Pokémon to Disney-Pixar. At the time I
was also obsessed with the X-Men, and the whole idea of super powers. That’s
when after a few years I wrote something unconditionally. I wrote a fanfiction
combining Harry Potter and X-Men, except the characters were people I knew. There
was only one other friend who’d seen this and who encouraged me to write it.
She would look forward to the next chapters, and that gave me an incentive; a
drive. But that’s not all I was writing for. I was writing because I
illustrated it too, and I needed a topic to illustrate on. By the time I
started highschool (just a year older), I was too embarrassed to see the book
again, and nobody’s ever seen it besides my friend, Gowri.
There were phases after that when I wrote poetry and prose,
and (not to brag), but they were much better than the embarrassing stories I
wrote as a child. If I can read my own words without wanting to throw them
away, they must be pretty decent. ;)
I consider myself a wanna-be story artist; something that
relies so heavily on literature that I can’t run away from it. I realise now
after reading everything I’ve read, and written everything I’ve written that
it’s all connected, and I need to write, because I need to draw. I want to be a
better writer to be a better artist, and to develop as a person. I write
because I want to save the world and have super abilities, and produce magic
that people faintly believe in; and give back to the world - what those
wonderful writers gave me. A blank canvas is where freedom lies.
So when I read what Steve Levitan wrote about writing, it
just fit. We are dreamers. And dreamers gotta write. :)
( For the other writeups, visit THIS page)
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