A writer's life

A writer’s life has to be lonely.

A flash of illumination that struck me at 3 AM in the morning as I devoured through the ‘Boyhood’ and ‘Youth’ of JM Coetzee. It is the first time I am reading Coetzee. I get easily impressed but the charm of the first books I read of most authors stays alive, forever a warm memory.

I have read enough about authors who claim that the art of fiction is always to mix and match. A nose of your first cousin, the sexual escapades of your grand aunt, the secret cupboard of your grandfather, the sing-song guffaws of your colleague at work – and there you have it, your original character.

Maybe it works, but only if you write for yourself shielded from readers, judgements.
Else, there is nowhere to hide.

It doesn’t matter how clever you are at deception. Or how many readers you have. You will most definitely have 4; your first cousin, your grand aunt, your grandfather and your colleague – and no place in their lives henceforth.

Because it is always easier to write about what is wrong in a person, like a cartoonist who exaggerates trivial flaws. Good is boring. It is the dark, the quirky and the hidden that excites.

Honesty cannot be masked. As in life, so in writing. And only the brave can be unfailingly honest. Because what you really know; deeply, intimately – is only your life (if that).
To be a writer is to betray everyone you know – an offence nakedly visible, at least to all betrayed.
And it is to give birth to a suspicion in everyone else as to whether they are next in line.

To be a writer is to lose spontaneity in friendships; to give up on relationships.

A writer’s life has to be lonely.