Why write

I think better when I write, that is primarily why I like writing down my thoughts. I feel like I have to write to arrive at a destination. By writing things out, I can revisit them and see if these thoughts reflect what I think. It is an investigation into your mind. They may mean nothing and inconsequential. They may also be reminders of something that I want to work towards. We are our consciousness. Self-awareness is one thing I need to improve on so as to be present and make better decisions.

Haruki Murakami and Wu Ming-Yi have aptly put together why they write.

‘ The last thing I’d like to note is that I’m not the kind of person who is very good at thinking things out purely using my mind. I ‘m not good at logical argument or abstract thought. The only way I can think about things in any kind of order is by putting them in writing.’-Novelist as a Vocation, Haruki Murakami.

‘For some, life experiences drive the writing process. But for me writing novels is a way to getting to know, and thinking about, human existence, I’m just a regular guy who has, through writing ,come to understand things I couldn’t have before, concerning human nature and emotion. I write because I don’t see the world clearly. I write out of my own unease and ignorance.’ –The Stolen Bicycle, Wu Ming -Yi [Postscript: A Time Beyond Mourning]

‘The ancient Greek historian Polybius put it thus: ‘ The most instructive thing is remembering other people’s calamities. To stoically accept the vagaries of fate, this is the only way.’ I write novels to know how to stoically accept the vagaries of fate.‘

    -The Stolen Bicycle -Wu Ming-Yi @ page 368

In this digital age when we have to answer texts and emails via our devices and mostly instantaneously, I find that I have become a little robotic. I find myself having problems crafting a simple sentence and my brains do not seem to function coherently. I am not one who is able to compartmentalise my time, my mind is inclined to wander. As I’m in the habit of buying books and hungrily devour them, there never seem to be enough time for reading as much as I would like to, and I very much want to write what I want to write and not the email or messages that I have to respond to. I need to gain my centre by writing.

I write primarily because I enjoy writing just like I enjoy reading. I feel that we are all connected and through writing, your own consciousness will interact with the consciousness out there at large or likewise you may also come across writings that resonate with you.

Maybe Next Time by Cesca Major is a time loop story where the main character gets so caught up with her work and ever- growing to do list that she overlooks the people who matter. As she is too driven with her ambition as a literary agent and obligations, and on top of that she offers her free time to sit on the neighbourhood committees because she cannot say no. She becomes a neglectful spouse and parent to their children.

In Maybe Next Time, Emma Jacobs and Dan exchange a letter to each other on their anniversary day so every year comes the eve of 3rd December they would write a letter to share their true thoughts every year and that gives them a chance to start a conversation . They meet in 2006 and finally tie the knot in 2017. It is Monday 3rd December 2021. Emma is caught up with the social media tweets about one of their major client’s faux pas whom according to Dan is strictly speaking Emma’s boss’s client hence and her boss should be staying up preparing for a meeting with his publishers and not Emma. In his letter to her, he asks if she has forgotten again their anniversary .

‘How low on your To Do List am I?Am I just another hting to check off, another thing to manage? I don’t want to be that – I want to be the thing , the person, who makes you hop out of bed in the morning, someone you get excited about.

So I won’t assume you’ve forgotten again, I could be wrong. I really HOPE I’m wrong and you’re reading this and I’m grovelling – but I have this horrible foreboding.

I want you to be blown away that we’re still here, still together after all this time. Still having fun , still catching each other’s eyes when the kids do something funny (or annoying), still having sex. ‘

As it happens, Emma forgets their anniversary the previous year and she has promised Dan that she would make more of an effort and make time. For a while during winter, she takes time off or late start so they can walk the dog together. But things soon slips again as there is always another Book Fair or meeting or phone call. The thing is Dan is not so wired up about her work because he loves that she loves her work. It is ‘the in-between bits – the Facebook groups, Twitter rabbit holes, the committees, the voluntary schemes‘. Dan finds Emma tapping furiously on her phone in the evening because she is comforting some stranger in a Facebook group. The stranger has just got fired from her job.

Dan is angry that Emma does not prioritise him and their daughter, Poppy. aged ten and their son , Miles, aged eight. So that fateful evening, they argue, Dan walks out of the door with their dog, Gus and he is hit by a car. Emma is devastated and the next day, she wakes up to the same Monday. She thinks she is having a second chance so she tries to change the course of the day and alter choices and again her husband dies. She wakes up the next day it is the same Monday again and repeatedly she wakes up, Dan is alive in the morning and is dead by the evening . She thinks there is something wrong with her brains. Could you have a déjà vu this strong? She checks into the hospital hoping that she can get a MRI scan but she cannot convince the doctor to give her because the story that she tells makes her sound like she needs talk therapy. It is surreal and as she is caught in this time loop, repeatedly she is given a chance to make it a better day. In her quest for redemption, she uncovers her issues, re-evaluate her priorities, embrace simple pleasures, cherish moments with Dan and challenge herself to be a better spouse and parent.

How often we regret things said, not said or things done, not done and we wish that we could relive that moment to correct our deeds, our words or our silence. Maybe Next Time by Cesca Major is a fiction that reminds us that every second counts and we have to be mindful of what matters as there may be consequences that we live to regret and we cannot undo the past. Maybe Next Time is a bittersweet story. Here is a quote that best describes the takeaway from the novel.

  ’Be where you are; otherwise you will miss your life.
                      Buddha‘

               ― Maybe Next Time, Cesca Major.