Re-igniting the Coil ..
The column is The Coil - on the Guyana Mosquito
I am grateful for the work but there is anxiety about the work since this writing thing is accidental.
The last coil I wrote is called Living with Stagnation.
I was bothered by being in a rut and writing about the same things , sometimes in different ways. Circumstances enabled a pause in the writing, with the editor asking for resumption before I expected.
No one asked me 'whuh happen to de Coil'. I could feel a way that the absence of new Coils did not cause any national crisis. I am more concerned about the loss of income which came about from my inability to put words together.
There is a routine, a cycle.. Coil published, obsess about the feedback (or lack of feedback), start thinking what to write about, or take a picture and write around it. Listen to people , see if the conversations could stimulate anything to write. Think about relevance. Grammar. Coherence. Sometimes, actively go out and find things to write about.
Write, try putting words. Send it in. Exhale and see the reaction and obsess about the feedback. Submit invoice. Collect payment.
"Good one"
Success is not easy to define. The editor has edited and published everything that I have submitted. The editor has said 'good one' to about 5 of the almost 70 things I have submitted. The editor liked 'Contemplating home and corpses"and "Ecstasy" and "Remembering at Wismar , Linden" and "Saluting Bobby's flagpole". The last one had a lot of feedback.
"Suicide Prevention without empathy ? " also had a lot of likes and feedback.
I worked hard on "Whose history is this Venezuela border janjhat?"
but it seems that there was no interest. I enjoyed writing 100th Anniversary of a Guyanese chowtaal , - but no one had any interest.
"Go out and listen and observe"
The editor said I should go out and listen and observe and write. There are times when it is easy to do so, in non-exploitative ways to get vibes to connect to themes like this on the the Good and Green Life.
Some conversations are imaginary like this one and this one .
A reader had said that I make up the other stuff to portray my racist views but some of the conversations cannot be made up.
There are conversations about Rice Flour, and Social work and discrimination against women.
There are other conversations which I wish I could have followed up on but did not have the mental energy to do so.
The conversations though have been the most important thing to catalyse and set off the writing. I have started off with a line or two from a conversation and then thought.. there is somewhere to go with this.
I have also written lines of conversation as 'endings' and thought, right.. how to get there. I have not had beginnings and endings and thought what to put in between.
Moving beyond stagnation
I have written a lot about drains and drainage and using as a metaphor for the state of Guyana but I think it is also about my state.
The Coil is due this week. At this stage, I have no idea what will be in it, which is usual. There is a line from a conversation which could start it. I have to think of the featured image.
And then trying to put the words together, and then sending it in, to publish and then obsessing over the feedback before thinking of the next one.
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