The Art of Clear Writing – Of dance and writing

(Listen on Spotify)

I signed up for The Art of Clear Writing workshop by Amit Varma, and the first session was today at 10 PM IST. Like so many other things in my life, my brother had recommended it to me a few weeks ago (well, more like he asked me to do it :D), and my first thought went – High time I attended one of these.

I have never stuck to a deadline with my writing because deadlines to me have been a part of the routine side of life. The day regime where you go to work or sign into your laptop at 8. Attend standup calls, plan sprint schedules and keep track of your projects on JIRA boards and OneNote notebooks.

The rest of my life is disorganized – writing and dancing occupy huge shares in it, and I indulge in them whenever I feel like it. To me, that’s also what was fun about it and I staunchly believed that adding timetables and discipline to it would take the fun away.

Yet I have to acknowledge the best part about the times that I do stick to learning a dance choreography lies in the impressive (and much-lacking) discipline it brings to my life. I work out regularly in the two to four weeks that it takes to finishing a piece. I fall asleep by midnight as I’m exhausted by the physical activity, so I end up getting a full 8 hours sleep. I take multiple showers and eat really well because I build a normal-to-huge appetite. I drink tons of water.

Which is why I initially decided that I’d see about the writing workshop later, and that I’d join Bharatanatyam classes first (I have wanted to attend them for years, but it’s a lukewarm urge 55% of the time).

Last week though, I got thinking about my writing. Like I mentioned, I am not one to push content or impose deadlines with this blog. This space in fact has always been less of a blog and more of a dwelling for my thoughts. Yet once I started reading more again in the last month, I have wanted to write more, and to take it up seriously.

This is a stepping stone.

PS : Too little about writing in this first post on the topic; the upcoming ones will be more on writing and less about everything else 🙂