Showing posts with label words. Show all posts
Showing posts with label words. Show all posts

Thursday, 7 February 2013

Why I write... And a million random thoughts

I'm not a very organized person - not when it comes to my thoughts. So it doesn't come as much of a surprise, that I'm lost for words most of the times. To put all of the thoughts flitting in and out of my head into one coherent sentence verbally, is somewhat of a mammoth task and I'm happy if I can manage finishing a sentence without stuttering. Most people mistake it for awkwardness and reticence, but it is just a case of my brain - well, Multitasking.




Which is why, I find writing to be a pleasant change from talking. It gives me the kind of freedom to express, that talking never did. I know I'm not even close to Shakespeare, but I'm more comfortable jotting down my thoughts on a piece of paper than having them spoken out loud. Writing gives me a sense of firmness- the finality that comes with the idea being actually visible in a coherent form on paper or on a computer screen. I know there are many, who feel that the written form is insensitive and cold. With the range of punctuations that we have, (almost, always used unnecessarily) I feel what we write can and does influence a lot of people across the world. Take the web and the print media as examples. I agree that there is a large section of people who tune into the 9'o clock news, but a majority of them will also pick up the newspaper with their morning cup of tea, the next day. For people of my generation, content on the web is influencing us majorly - right from buying books on Amazon to buying high-end electronics after reading reviews. Word-of-mouth has now become Word-on-Facebook or Word-on-Twitter and everything we write is going to have "The Butterfly Effect" somewhere down the line. Besides finding it as an effective medium to express myself, I really find it the best way to get things out of my system after a long day. Trust me when I say, it's way better than shouting. And the best part? The paper or the laptop you're writing on doesn't judge you.


Above all, there's one more reason - I simply love the elaborate long form of written content like everyone else. In our fast-paced lives, we often don't have the patience to listen to what a sales person has to say. But we'd willingly peruse a product specification brochure, that is 3 pages long, on the internet. Although, we claim we're leaping into the future - from written to audio-visual, I think we've already made the leap from written to audio-visual and back to written content supplemented with visuals.


Like I said, I could be biased because I haven't been much of a spontaneous talker as a child. What are your reasons for writing? I would love to hear some of your views.

Till next time,

Divya

Saturday, 12 January 2013

Woes of an internet writer

Recently, when talking to a friend I realized how easily people took content on the internet for granted. As I was describing my job profile to her, she interjected with an "Oh! So you basically write. How hard can that get? Use some flowery words, put in some posh grammar... Lo and Behold, there you have an article." I was tempted to retort back with "If it seems that easy let's see you do it, Shakespeare",but settled for, "Yeah. Pretty much", instead.


That does summarize what people, in general, think of  writers - Hobo chicks with pencils in their bun wearing flowing skirts writing flowery poetry. If it were only that simple!Even worse is when you tell people you work on Facebook or Twitter the whole day. Just the other day, my mother thought I was wasting time on Twitter on a weekend. When I told her this was a part of the job, all she replied was "What possibly could you work with on a social networking site that just allows 140 characters?" She, like many other people, is blissfully unaware of the efforts at the backend of every site- social networking or otherwise. To them, it's all just a random unknown person sitting on a computer somewhere far away posting content and images.


What many people don't understand is that words are way more powerful than swords could ever be. Especially with the Internet disseminating information so effortlessly, words are more than just the building blocks of a language. They're ticking time bombs if used wrongly. The wrong words at the right time could trend and result in something awful or moronic.Take the recent case of a teen committing suicide because #CutForBieber was trending on Twitter. Agreed that it was the most drastic case of a prank gone bad, but that's the kind of impact words have on people.


So the next time you see a writer, tip your hat off to that guy/girl. They're probably the reason why you have your Facebook, Twitter and Google timelines flooded with information. Whether the said information is relevant or irrelevant is another story altogether!