Once upon a time, I used to write about anything and everything that popped into my mind. I wrote about what happened around me, things that piqued my interest, thoughts that made me reflect, the mundane, the happy, bits of everything. Sometimes it made sense, sometimes it didn’t make a shred of sense to me, and maybe not to the reader either. But I enjoyed it. I enjoyed writing and sharing those little tidbits here.
These days, especially this past year, I’ve noticed a change. I don’t write the random stuff as much.
Every time something catches my attention and I feel like writing, an unknown resistance immediately takes over and stops me from writing it down, let alone publishing it.
It feels like a disease.
Even to write fiction, I struggle. It’s as if I am under the clutches of an unknown demon whispering that my words don’t matter, that I am only making a fool of myself.
Fortunately, my poetry writing has been spared. Though I worry I’m just repeating the same lines in different forms, I still manage to gather the courage to write a few verses and share them.
My weekly gratitude posts also disappeared almost completely.
When I think about it calmly, I realize it’s my overthinking brain at play, raising unnecessary questions, convincing me my thoughts, my life, my writing belong in a small, insignificant box. And I keep falling for that absurdity, shutting my own voice away.
So here I am, trying to confront that demon with all my might. I don’t want to quit. I want to keep trying—even if what I write feels unworthy of a single reader.
When I started typing this post, I had no idea where it would take me. After all, it’s about my shortcomings and insecurities. Yet I feel lighter just letting my thoughts out, unfiltered.
If we could live, even for a moment, without the fear of judgment, life would feel instantly better.
So I’ve decided to write and publish every day. Or at least five days a week. A Poem, flash fiction, musings, random observations, six-word story, haiku, gratitudes—something, anything.
Because there is no excuse for me not to write, except the thought that “no one would want to read this”. But that isn’t my decision to make. The reader gets to choose whether to read or not. My part is to write. Because that’s what I want to do. Because when I don’t, when I keep everything bottled up inside, it truly hurts.
This piece is written in response to the two hundredth and sixty seventh edition of Fiction Monday inspired by the word prompt – QUIT hosted by yours truly. Do join in if you have a tale to tell.
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Void Thoughts 
Exactly, you have to write for yourself. Doesn’t matter if anyone is coming to read or not. Keep writing and writing everyday courageously. My best wishes to you, always.
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When I read this statement “My part is to write”, I remembered a dialogue in Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s film “geet jab swayam ke liye gatey hain to SANGEET bantha hai.’ ‘SANG” means merging and SANG-GEET I understand is expressed from the soul and merges in the soul – original and unadulterated by motive to impress others. Your prose and verse are like ‘sangeet’, Vinitha.
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