Dear Me

Author Notes: I've written this for a contest which requires to submit a letter written to self giving the personal New Year 2007 resolutions. And I would be indebted if you can give feedback on my dialogue writing.


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01st January, 2007

Dear Me,

I’m writing this letter so that I can relive my New Year resolutions for 2007 till I successfully bring them to an end. I’ll…

“All right! All right! Now don’t nag me. What do you want me to write?”

“As if you don’t know...”

“Fine, I’ll ‘write, write and write’ all the whole year. Now does it make you happy? Let me close this off!”

“Not so soon, my dear! What do you mean ‘write, write and write’? You’ve been telling me this for ages. What’s it that you have written? Show me one piece of fiction that I, your other half, your critic, can be proud off.”

“Why, you have seen Painter Babu, haven’t you? Isn’t it a fine piece of fiction? Haven’t you read the reviews on writing.com and storywrite.com? How readers and writers have responded to it. They have liked it and many feel that I have great talent as a writer.”

“Oh boy! Poor me! Poor me! When are you going to grow up? Haven’t you learned anything from history? You are building castles in air by living in your praises. You are being too positive to be realistic! One of the first reviews of your story showed how many awful grammatical mistakes you made. What about them? When are going to look into them?”

“I’ve corrected them, long ago!"

“Of course you have, but what have you done for them not to be repeated? Have you checked your grammar, at least once?”

“Well…”

“No you haven’t! You know you don’t stand a chance if your grammar is weak!”

“Yes I do!”

“And yet you haven’t done anything till now.”

“I’m planning for it.”

“No more plans, you are going to do it this year. Right?”

“Right!”

“In two months time!”

“Yeah Mr. Pessimist, in two months. I’ll definitely try!”

“And after one year as a writer is this the only piece, the so called ‘fine piece of fiction’, that you’ve churned out?”

“No! I’ve…”

“Yes! Yes! ‘What I Ask?’ a poem about true love, as if you are St. Valentine. What is that poem, anyway, supposed to mean? Just use few common rhyming verbs and cleverly put in some repetition and churn out a poem! I bet you have spent less time than water in a desert on it. Isn’t it?”

“Well, that’s my ability! I’ve woven a beautiful poem with in no time and with no words beyond a common man’s vocabulary. I should say I wrote the poem at a very cheap cost. No re-reads, re-writes and like. You just don’t know to appreciate hardwork and talent. You are a hardcore pessimist.”

“Yes I’m! And without me what you will be? A flabbergasted prais-oholic person!”

“Of course not…”

“Now tell me, how many words or pages have you been writing daily?”

“How can I write a definite number of words or pages everyday? Look, I’m a writer, not a data-entry guy. I write when I get inspiration!”

“Then you haven’t heard of a writer who sits at his typewriter and tells to his wife ‘I just can’t start until inspiration strikes’. He sits in the same position but only gets older, older and one fine day, gone – without tapping a single keystroke. I guess your idea is something like that.”

“No, not at all! I understand you Mr. Pessimist, I know I ought to practice writing everyday but somehow just can’t find time to do it. You know I’m a software engineer and hardly get time to do other activities.”

“Now get this straight: writers write; everyone else makes excuses. It’s up to you to decide whether you want to be a writer or an ‘everyone else’ ”

“But…”

“Writing is hard work. Do you think successful writers have whole world of time, no other tasks or are always eager to face the keyboard? Definitely not! They are people who have pulled out time to write and thus have become successful and not just ‘everyone else’”

“Yes that’s pretty much true...”

“So I assume you are going to write everyday this year, as a resolution.”

“Yes, I’ll try but I don’t know…I want to pen a novel…I don’t know. I want to concentrate on that!”

“Oh Mr. Optimist, that’s not a problem at all. I’ve a solution for that also. How long do you think your novel might take to be ready for publishing?”

“Probably 3 years or maybe 4.”

“Ok now, let’s say you write one page a day for the whole year of 2007.”

“That makes 365 pages at the end of year.”

“Exactly! So by the end of year 2007 you are ready with a 365-page novel. Take, atmost, another year to edit or re-write and you will have a well-finished novel to show to an agent or a publisher within 2 years.”

“And that is as good an output as many best-selling novelists have!”

“Perfect! See, you’ve got my point. The rate at which you are giving excuses now, I don’t see how you will be able to complete your book, forget taking 3 or 4 years.”

“But…but what if after all this hardwork, I get rejected?”

“Getting rejected can happen anyway, whether you complete your novel in 2 years or 4 years or a 100 years. But going this way you reduce chances of getting rejected. Even if you get rejected, revise your novel and send it to another publisher. If he also rejects send it to another. But just don’t give up. No matter what, persistence will take you through.”

“Well, I guess you are right. I’ll make sure I write a page a day for the whole year.”

“And you will give no excuses!”

“No of course, I’ll give no more excuses, not even to my wife, like that writer. And this should give me a reasonably good novel though not publishable. I’ll work on my grammar also. And I hate to admit it but I’ll go through all the review comments I’ve received for whatever I’ve written and work on the negative ones, something I haven’t done till now.”

“Wonderful! These should make reasonable and practical resolutions for a writer.”

“Yes I suppose! And thanks a lot Mr. Pessimist. You have put me on the right track. Well, I guess I shouldn’t call you Mr. Pessimist anymore.”

“Anytime my dear brother. What am I without you and what is this individual without us? We make sure that he is balanced and takes wise decisions. You help him relax and I help him work. We are just playing our roles.”

“And I think it is better our would-be writer goes to bed. It’s quite late in the night.”

“I guess I shouldn’t have any complaints. The New Year has started and so have the resolutions for him, I mean us. Looks like today’s work is very much done with this supposed-to-be letter though this might not be a page in his novel.”

“Never mind! I guess he’ll be okay with a 364-page novel. Good night then!”

“Good night Mr. Optimist and thanks to you too.”

“Ah! My pleasure!”


Ever a Writer,
I

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