Yes, the title is for real. Writing crap. Well, you can read on to judge whether I still write crap or not. But ultimately, it’s your perspective.
I never got accolades for writing. And I mean never. Yes, I earned a few thousand but didn’t get “Oh, wow!” from clients.
I’ve always been in love with one-liners, rhymes, and limericks. It was kinda my thing. I aspired to join an advertising agency — and I did intern for two months in one (unpaid).
I also interned at a vernacular newspaper publication agency as an Ad Sales professional. While working as an ad sales intern, I got super frustrated, so much so, I literally cried during one of my prospective client pitches.
“I want to bake the cake, not sell it!” that’s what I screamed in my head and called it to quit.
My dad gave me a week’s time to get a job of my liking or take up his option — At the bank.
That one week wreaked internal havoc but I scouted and dropped my resume every potential agency I could in Kolkata. And at the end of the week — no kidding here and I’m not saying it just for the sake of drama, but there was DRAMA — I got a call from an e-greeting card company 123greetings.com for a copywriter’s job.
A day’s interview and I get the job — to utter disappointment of my dad, who didn’t speak to me for a week just because I did not go for the bank interview, which he got me through his friend’s recommendation. Kinda an ego trip, I’d say.
So, that’s where my journey as a content creator started. And I was having fun at work. I was enjoying a lot, with new colleagues, awesome musicians, and my work being released online every single day.
My stint at the e-greeting card agency lasted for a year. And I wanted more. So, I got my post-graduation diploma in Mass Communication, while doing freelance writing.
However, I was just writing for clients — their websites, blogs, snippets, et al. And I was not feeling it. Call it writer’s block but it dawned on me — I was not writing something amazing or worthwhile.
My husband nudged me — and continues to till date — to work on my own book. But somehow I try, without getting anywhere.
The reason for this roadblock is — after a lot of self-analysis and realization — because I was simply being an armchair writer.
I was looking straight and not upwards when working on a piece.
I was creating content for the sake of it. formulating words, sentences, and jargons for clients with their specific brief.
I wasn’t present in my work. I was nowhere actually.
I realized further, I was writing crap. Why I am being harsh? Because what I was writing was generic, mellow, and uninspiring.
The worst part of such realization is that I wasn’t being critical of my own work and would get offended if someone gave his/her honest critique.
So, I decided to work from scratch. Even if it required to learn or brush up on my grammar and vocabulary. I started my blog www.geekilymarried.com and wrote and wrote, everything and anything under the sun, without having any expectation of traffic, claps, or readership.
My goal is to write crap, till I could successfully tap — that is SATISFACTION!
