Category: Writing

Food For Thought, Myself, Writing

Nanowrimo, Movember and Life

Sanjay Sabarwal

thSo I am now at 10,000 words, more than I have written in decades. I am also clean-shaven for Movember after a decade. It’s funny to me when I speak to other writers lately about the reasons why they cannot do Nanowrimo. From “I have to outline to no time”, I have heard it all. But recently a theme has come up. What if it’s no good?  What if it’s a waste of time. That’s the really big worry . It comes down what if I spend hours upon hours for 30 days and have nothing to show for it. Just 50,000 words of crap. My answer is simple. You won’t. If  Nothing else you will write something unique, different. Just let go. I am in the middle of a Novel, something I thought impossible a few years ago. I am 35 pages in, and I admit I am dying to edit, to delete, backspace some of the shit that spews out of me. I dawdle on Facebook and Twitter in the early morning, but I am writing. I am inching forward. 630am every morning so far, I am giving myself the permission to be a writer.  9am I call it quits, and then my day starts.

I hope to start Crossfit soon so I can begin prepping for Spartan, and I am nervous. Isn’t it a bit much to add that to my life. Also, trying to do Zen Habits where this months habit is to spend mindful time with loved ones. Give them at least 10 minutes without interruption.  And then there are some who have suffered horrific losses. One death. One fighting Cancer. It’s a strange and unpredictable world that teaches us that if not now, then when? Seize the day before it seizes you.

Myself, Writing

Word Stealer

Sanjay Sabarwal

i-m-a-wordsmith-which-is-kind-of-like-a-blacksmith-but-without-the-tools-and-fire-and-stuffMy name is Sanjay Sabarwal, and I am a word stealer. I eavesdrop everywhere I go, and put away the snippets of conversation I hear. I read various articles, stories and magazines, and pocket away interesting verbs and action sentences. I squirrel away images that come in front of me when I walk my dog. I hide away tidbits of friends’ conversations for some future use.  Again, and again I steal words. Some days, I am melancholic about my need to be such a thief, but then there are the days when I am sitting in front of the laptop, and those words come out from various from their hiding places and help me weave together an altogether fictional story built on truth.

I am tempted to warn my friends to watch out for my habit . When I was a novice, I didn’t have the sense to edit out contexts and emotions which made me a biographer, and the brunt of many a fight about why I didn’t just keep my mouth shut.  Then it hit me that I didn’t need to be a recorder just a thief, and so I began stealing. It has been my most satisfying tool in writing. I no longer have to worry about words, just how to use them.

Myself, Writing

Nightmares

Sanjay Sabarwal

failureSo had my first nightmare in a long time. It was surreal as it started in the middle. I am sure I was dreaming of something else, but I see a guy passing by, and for some reason. I call him a pussy. He keeps walking, but I know he is going to come back, and sure enough he does. I am on some stairs, and he begins walking up, and I begin blubbering that I was kidding, and didn’t mean to say what I did but like in dreams, suddenly there are 3 more people, and one grabs my hand, trying to force my wedding ring off while another grabs my watch, and then third has a razor blade. The old school kind that my father used to use when he shaved. And I start mumbling that I really didn’t mean it, but the razor keeps coming towards my right eye. The only one with a contact, and I don’t want to be blind. I don’t want to be squinting out of left eye which sees mostly blurs lately. I knew instinctively that they wanted the good eye, and as I woke up, there was an immediate fading idea that if only I had a gun to equalize the unfairness of the situation (there goes my liberal card).

The weird part is that I didn’t know any of the men well except for the first guy who suspiciously looked like the Reading Rainbow Gentleman Levar Burton (chucking anti-racist card as we speak).  Yes, I did try to figure out the dream, and I am pretty sure the entire dream was an allegory of my recent in ability to read, write or do anything workout related the past few weeks. Each day, I have this vague goal of writing and running, and while some days I am successful in writing for 20 minutes and exercising for 15, I know that’s not going to get it done if I want to be published or be in any sort of shape for the Spartan Beast which is fast approaching in September.

But, and this is a big but, I know I am doing something which is still infinitely better than the nothing I was doing before. So thanks to the Zen Habits, I practice self-compassion. I am giving myself a break even if they give me nightmares.

Food For Thought, Myself, Writing

Not Always So/Empty Hands

Sanjay Sabarwal

Almost every day, I get the urge to blog. Yet it is not always so that I write. I  can’t remember how many blog posts  I have written in my head. I often wish for a machine that could just transcribe directly from my brain on to paper. I am pretty sure I am not the only one to fantasize about that.The worst is when I get ideas for a stories or essays, and in that one magical few moments, I can see the entire thing already completed. And then the next moment, poof, it’s gone. Sometimes my brain is smart enough to jot the idea down in my phone, but after a few days when I look at those words, it’s like they are gibberish. Yet the urge to write keeps striking, and so many days have gone by that it no longer made sense to wait. So even though life is not always so, today I am going to attempt to make sense of some of my thoughts.

So much has happened this past month. A good friend recently put together a great event called “The Empty Hands” tour.  When first approached about it, and after listening to the video that was created, I knew I had to attend. The concept was simple. A listening party at a generous friends place along with mini stories about gratitude, love, and forgiveness. The concept riveted me. Nimo Patel (formerly of the desi hip hop group Karmacy) has been living in India for almost 7 year now, and although he thought he was done with music, his experiences at Manav Sadhna struck the creative chord. I am going to admit, the old me would have dismissed all this as hokey and too New Age crap, but Nimo’s sincerity is not only infectious, it is inspiring. It is rare to find so many like-minded at the event who gave them time, attention and love all in the name of being better.

I cringe at the my inability to share the joy and admiration I felt to be part of that event, yet here I am trying. I am learning that is it not always so that life will be as one pictures it. It is not always so when the day will go as planned or the people in our life will treat us the way we wish to be treated. All we have are moments of the present to enjoy what’s out there. So New Age Sanjay says  that while sometimes it may feel or look like you are holding nothing in your hands, that is they are empty, but often than not, they carry our hopes and wishes as well as gratitude.

Brownness, Myself, Sumita, Writing

Memorial Happiness

Sanjay Sabarwal

The link provided below came to me via  Sumita and I had just finished reading the book When God Wink’s by Squire Rushnell (http://www.whengodwinks.com/faqs/) which says that there is no such thing as coincidence.  Coincidences are God’s ways of moving us along to our paths.  The video talks about happiness, and that it’s not about material things or doing a journey for being happy. The journey can be happiness. We have to let go of what we want of others to be happy, and we have to stop thinking that we have to reach happiness when we can choose to be happy.  It’s not easy, but as soon as you can let go of what you expect from others, you can be happier. It struck me that lately my life has involved a lot of coincidences. I have actually used my legal knowledge more in the past 2 months than my entire life. I am being asked to do more, and I realize that is something I have been asking for years. I put it into the universe, and now it has been answered.I realize now as I open myself up more and more to the Universe that I am finding answers. I have been struggling to write for a while but just found out I am getting my certificate from UCLA Extension for Creative Non Fiction. Coincidence?

I began helping a dear friend of mine, and already I am getting more in return than he is. Helping others is helping yourself is what I am learning.   He has been struggling, and at first I thought he just needed financial help, but it was really more than that. We have reconnected in our old ways, and suddenly I see myself being an attorney. and it hits me maybe that was the plan all along. Maybe it was not a coincidence…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=IM5JHURKBmQ#!

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Myself, Writing

Fraud

Sanjay Sabarwal

I have this need to be read It’s why I have been writing since I was 16, and I often wonder what makes me want to share with others.  What makes me desire to hear the sentence “I read what you wrote” followed by “I liked/loved/laughed/cried/thought about what you wrote.”  I am open to criticism but I am scared of it as well. My biggest fear is not being liked but being ignored. As if I don’t exist. I write because it makes me feel as I exist. It is the only time that I am the uninterrupted. unadulterated me.

All my life. I have fought this nagging feeling of being a fraud, of feeling that I was meant for something different. The reality is that we are all a bunch of choices.  We are where we are either because of our own choices or others in our lives.  The others count only if your under 18 or just not willing or able to make your own choices. As a Punjabi, its easy to point the finger at my parents, but they didn’t force me to write, or go to UCLA or law school. Those were all my decisions so in a way I need to write to think out loud on paper. I have this need to inflict my opinion others. It’s perhaps the only time I feel as if intellectually I matter.

Yet even my writing is haphazard just like my feelings and thoughts. I have been unable to write something original in a long time. It’s as if I am afraid to really put myself out there or maybe just maybe I don’t have it in me. It is that last thought that drives me crazy. If I am not a writer, then what am I?  It’s the only label I have ever really wanted, and its the only that has eluded me now for over 2 decades.  I often the wonder if the feeling I am a fraud is actually who I am.  That perhaps in some way. my desire to be something other than what others think of me is what drives me?

I don’t know, and so I write even though I feel like a fraud.  IMG_1964

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