Raghava, since all of the above, I keep looking for your writing ... here is another idea: try writing about sounds heard in childhood. It is just an excercise but can lead you to a rich source. Or pick any element - air, water etc and focus on that to ground the thoughts.

- Lyndal :)

i find it helps to write at least three pages without pausing to correct or even punctuate each day, with a fountain pen. And also to read aloud and hear how it sounds. When you feel something is working ask someone else to read it aloud. when it works you can be amazed to realise it is actually your writing.

Wow! Fantastic! What great responses from each one of you. This is really very helpful and I appreciate you all taking the time to write such lengthy but also rich responses. Though, more than anything I enjoyed reading your responses for the genuine and unfiltered enjoyment you all so clearly posses for writing. I had never imagined it but just like any other form of creative outlet, writing too is a way by which to connect with the Divine through thoughtlessness and creativity. :)

Thank you all for the advice and help!

A great question Raghava. In my publishing life I came across commercially successful authors, most of whom had their own particular way of writing. John Irving, for example, said he couldn't write a word unless he'd sketched out the novel in outline, so for example, he'd know at the outset what the last page would say. Others just start and see where their nose leads them. Another, Colm McCann, writes a page and stops when he knows what comes next, so there's never "writers block". Next day he writes another page, edits/re-writes the first page. The third day, he writes a new page, edits/re-writes the second page etc. This is a process where he's writing and re-writing as he goes along. Richard Miller, who lived in Monterey CA and was known and liked by the people in the City Lights Bookshop in San Francisco said he writes a thousand words every day, just as it comes to him. If he does this five days a week, since a novel tends to be between 80,000 and 120,000 words, between 16 and 24 weeks, he's finished it. He then spends the same amount of time or more, as necessary, editing, re-writing, polishing it, until he's finished. Michael Ondaatje writes in fountain pen. He keeps detailed notes on index cards. He took seven years to write The English Patient, a co-winner of the Booker Prize and which sold over 250,000 in hardcover. He had thirteen versions of the novel, all handwritten, with many of the characters having differing roles in different versions, all detailed in his complex index card system. One of the most successful commercial authors I had the pleasure of meeting was James Michener, who had been a close advisor to President J.F. Kennedy. His novels sold countless millions, many were made into successful Hollywood movies and he told me that the reason his books sold year in year out, was that he never finished a novel until he couldn't make it any better. When people ask me if I'd read a book they've written, the first thing I ask is, "Is it as good as you can make it?" So far, no one has said, "Yes!".

I think this is really important, no one would go into their garden, start whacking at a rock with a hammer and chisel and after an hour or so, say "What do you think of my Shri Ganesha statue?" Yet, this is what they'll do with a piece of their writing.

Writing is a craft, and as such, it has to be learned, and it's learned by the process of writing and introspection, reading your own work with objectivity, as though someone else had written it. And then treating it as a sculptor, or painter might, working it, re-working it until it's not capable of further improvement. For many writers I met, the latter is the fun part.

I was lucky enough to meet, in England and in the USA, the two greatest editors of their day. (One, Robert Gottlieb, who'd been the CEO of Knopf, America's greatest literary publishing house, and the editor of the New Yorker magazine for ten years, told me how to make an English publishing company successful in America.) I asked each on different occasions, what it was they looked for when reading a manuscript by an unknown author. Each said, they're looking for "an authorial voice".

You can only get that voice by writing, I don't believe it can be taught, it has to emerge through years of writing and re-writing.

My advice would be - just write every day, write about anything you find inspiring or interesting. Don't beat yourself up by overthinking and develop the discipline to edit yourself. Above all, write only to please yourself, don't write for markets or nonsense like that, they're only artificial constructs of someone's mind.

I have to leave for the NJ ashram for the third night of Navaratri so allow me to break my own rules by not editing this before I post it!

For sure, Raghava, eating starts with having food in front of you, sleeping with lying, meditating with inducing the thoughtless awareness. Writing starts with having a tool to write, and then meditating for welcoming the thoughts of your spirit and not your ego's. And you better do that while being in thoughtless awareness and waiting for the divine inspiration to come. Lesser than divine ideas may be useless. Start with short writings. Haiku, like Nick does, is one way. A short poem is a second. A journal is another. Etc. This site is also a good way to start, as you have already done. Go on! Try also to write your own definitions of words or concepts in a poetic way, or in a philosophic one, or scientific, or any other. I wanted to post a definition of a word in this Ideas and Dreams section, separately, but I can writte it in this post to give you an example, with the most inspiring of words: God. It is a definition with which any religion can agree with in my opinion, including the Atheism and Agnostic ones. "I am the God of the Universe of my cells, which my body is, as well as a cell of the Universe of God, Her Body." This idea was developed in a poem I posted in the Writings section: "I am". Hm... Your post has already triggered 4 inspirational writings!

Having the same experience as Uncle Richard, I have found this knowledge: Surrender everything to writing, and your world, your character, and the others will show themselves. In writing, you are not the guide of your ideas, instead, you are the journeyer by their side. From experience of making a world, brainstorming ideas seems to be a good start, but in the end, it takes over your Swadisthan. Let the world show itself to you. Everything will become clear. Yet, this alone is difficult to explain. Writing is a state, therefore, the best thing to do is to step into its world and experience it for yourself.

My experience is that you cannot write in your head, only to a very limited extent. You may have an idea or a premise, but you need to start writing to see where it will go. Once you start writing, the details come out, the colour, the logic and the character.

That's great! I would say go with the idea that most excites you, and go forward with it. The best way to know if something works is to start working on it :) Also, are you writing outlines based on your ideas? That would definitely be helpful.