That feeling every writer knows

That growing sense of dread as you approach the desktop. The groggy eyes from a night spent trying to remember that smacker of a headline. The lethargy of racking your brains over coffee. Modern-day writers are just as troubled a lot as the Hemingways and Poes of yore (not that there’s ANY comparison in merit or talent, meh). In fact, the only reason our rooms look cleaner is because the backspace on the keypad is the new discarded paperball of bad sentences.

I panicked the first time I had to write an article. It’s a decade-and-a-half, and I still feel like the helpless babe (the wailing, tiny kind not the substitute for hotness). Panic sets in before I begin to write even.

If I am having a chat with a colleague after turning one in, my mind has a hard time focussing on the face or the words because it’s floating back to that exclamation mark sticking out like a pole in barren land. If there was a Magnet to sweep exclamation points away like iron filings, I’d have had it first.

Note: Exclamation marks are almost always not required.Remember the episode The Sniffing Accountant from the iconic Seinfeld series? Elaine breaks up with her boyfriend because he won’t use an exclamation point in his note.

Of course, she goes on to overcompensate by adding exclamation points in her edit and almost gets fired.

So much for the before and after of writing something as short as a 500-2,000 word article. During the process, however, once in a noon, I am in the flow and the words pour out like healing waters from a hot spring. I lose track of time. Hours seem like minutes and before I know it, dusk has set in. Writers will know this feeling. Runners know it. Chefs know this sensation. A lot of my musician buddies experience this in the studio in phases that last for days during a collaboration.

Author Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi puts it beautifully in his bestseller Flow (I highly recommend it for understanding the creative process).

All the misery of the before and after is worth the state of flow. It’s bliss, higher consciousness, serenity and oneness. From panic and inner chaos to this? Who wouldn’t want to write?

by Kasmin Fernandes

via Daily Prompt: Panicked

I am a strong believer in the law of attraction and that we are magnets in some way or the other. In the spirit of promoting the writing and blogging community, here are my picks of top stories and essays on the theme of “Magnet” from the vast daily-prompt library.

1. Lincoln, Tesla, Joseph Henry connected by fate – David J Kent
2. Why a magnet? – Fictionalism
3. Magnet – Martha Ann Kennedy
4. The magnetic law – Brave smart bold
5. Read this if you’re a magnet for drama – Just in Kace
6. Magnetic energy – The many layers of Jen
7. Magnet – Dirty little secret
8. No place like home – Life on the skinny branches
9. The draw of polarity – Virtuous paragon
10. Apps the way to go – Sheetal Bravon
11. Magnet of piety – Islamic methodologies made easy
12. Every Friday – MK Bhanu
13. Magnet school – Rita Kay
14. Magnet – Saturnalia saturation
15. In no position to judge – Anna Jailene Aguilar
16. I’m walking on sunshine – Sascha Darlington
17. The ocean owns my heart – Adventures of a busy mom
18. Jump! Bust the fear – Successful leaders
19. Magnet – Rosemary Carlson
20. This isn’t about you – Cimmerian sentiment
21. Stuck on repeat – Bia Atlas
22. The magnet of pain/ pleasure principle
23. Copycat cafe – Redux of rex
24. Scottie dogs – Linda’s writing blog
25. You don’t know Jack – David J Kent
26. Sunny me on a rainy day – The Delight Project
27. Selling mixed feelings – Flip flops every day
28. Planting a vegetable garden – This and that
29. *Censored – The 15th day
30. Our family’s trans-formation – Southern by Design
31. A man of mystery
32. You have been looking for us – The vampyre memoirs
33. A forgotten wedding – Phonograms
34. Building can be magnetising – Chronicles of an Anglo Swiss
35. The truth about romance – Life’s fine w(h)ine
36. Liquid detox – You are entering my mind
37. Opposites are fine – Kindergarten knowledge
38. For the love of art – Escape to the barn
39. Attraction, repulsion – Bird flight
40. Magnetised – feline – Anglo Swiss cat chronicles
41. Animal magnetism – Jim Adams
42. That we might understand – The logical Jon
43. Centrale Montemartini – IJ Khanewala
44. Hibernophiles and other crazy relatives – Jane’s journals
45. A magnet called social media – VishrutiA magnet called social media – Vishruti
46. Storyteller – Emma Palova
47. Beyond reason – Keeping this real
48. Mississippi Golf Coast – the art of healing and remembering Hurricane Katrina
49. My take on church – Shannon Joy
50. Magnetic – Vinay’s blog