Atongla Rothrong
Writing is one of the most solitary activities in the world. Once in a while I sit down to write, gaze out on the unknown sea of my soul, and see a few islands- ideas that have developed and which are ripe to be explored. Then I climb into my boat-called the world- and set out for the nearest island. On the way, I meet strong currents, winds and storms, but I keep rowing, exhausted, knowing that I have drifted away from my chosen course and that the island I was trying to reach is no longer on my horizon.
I can’t turn back, though, I have to continue somehow or else I’ll be lost in the middle of the ocean; at that point, a series of terrifying scenarios flash through my mind, such as spending the rest of my life talking about past successes, or bitterly criticizing other writers, simply because I no longer have the courage to publish new articles. Wasn’t my dream to be a writer? Then I must continue creating sentences, paragraphs, chapters, and go on writing until I die, and not allow myself to get caught in such traps as success or failure. Otherwise, what meaning does my life have? Being able to buy an old mill in the Deep South country side and tending my garden? Giving lectures instead, because it’s easier to talk than to write? Withdrawing from the world in a calculated, mysterious way, in order to create a legend that will deprive me of many pleasures?
Shaken by these alarming thoughts, I find strength and a courage I didn’t know I had: they help me to venture into an unknown part of my soul. I let myself be swept along by the current, and finally anchor my boat at the island I was being carried towards. I spend days and nights describing what I see, wondering why I’m doing this, telling myself that it’s really not worth the pain and the effort, that I don’t need to prove anything to anyone, that I’ve got what I wanted and far more than I ever dreamed of having.
I notice that I go through the same process as I did when writing my first verse. I begin out of a feeling of duty, but suddenly the thing takes hold of me and I can’t stop. I am no longer in control of where I place my feet, the island is being revealed to me, I am being propelled along its paths, finding things I have never even thought or dreamed of.
When I used to read biographies of writers, I always thought they were simply trying to make their profession seem more interesting when they said that ‘the book writes itself, the writer is just the typist’. Now I know that this is absolutely true, no one knows why the current took them to that particular island and not to the one they wanted to reach. The obsessive re-drafting and editing begins and I can no longer bear to re-read the same words one more time.
It is a constant source of surprise to me to discover that other people are also in search of that very island and that they find it in the books they love to read. One person tells another about a particular book. The mysterious chain grows, and what the writer thought of as a solitary exercise becomes a bridge, a boat, a means by which souls can travel and communicate.
