To my fellow readers,

I often ask myself if I am truly a writer. While I have quite a few articles published by various magazines and my first book has recently been published by Penguin-Random House, I still find it somewhat difficult to wrap my head around the fact that I am a writer.

The primary reason for this is that writing does not seem to come naturally to me. It is an effort to say the least. But one thing I have discovered is like everything else, writing also improves with practice. It really does. If I look at my very first effort versus my current writing, I do see a good deal of improvement which I find satisfactory. Unfortunately, that feeling quickly evaporates as I take on a new writing challenge and find myself once again struggling to put in the right words in my word document. I call it the ‘word struggle’, as opposed to ‘writer’s block’ (to admit that its writer’s block one must then acknowledge oneself as a writer😉). But recently I have started to question if I am one of the very few writers suffering from this kind of phenomena or is this a relatively common occurrence among most writers.

While I am sure there are writers to whom the words just naturally appear or perhaps appear in their dreams, by talking to a few authors I am delightfully finding out that the ‘word struggle’ is quite a common phenomena among most of the writers. As one of my favorite Japanese writer, Haruki Murakami pointed out in his short memoir “What do I Talk About When I Talk About Running”, writing takes a certain amount discipline. He mentioned how he strictly adheres to a schedule and forces himself to write every day. That I find is the key – if one has a topic in mind, then it is best to start the writing process and jot down whatever first comes to mind. And then improve it through various stages of edits. As with anything else, the frustration most often stems from unrealistic expectations that the first draft will come out like Shakespeare, at least for me (a slight exaggeration but not much).

Why am I even talking about this here? I just wanted to share this with my fellow readers who may also aspire to write but perhaps find the task daunting. If you are like me, indeed It will be very difficult to write at first but as one goes through the process, one might surprise oneself with the final results. So, if you are an aspiring writer and perhaps struggling to put the right words into paper like me, I simply have one piece of advice – just keep on writing!

Now let’s see if I can follow my own advice😊 Changing topic, this personal web site is meant to be more than just a chronicle of my publications. While I am still contemplating what the final webpage will look like, I want to it to reflect my thoughts and ideas on a multitude of things with you being able to comment and critique it right here. I also plan to share my memories from all my travels. Or perhaps the page will never be finalized but be on a journey of continuous evolution and change as in life.

A final disclaimer on that line – the website is still a work in progress so please allow me to ask forgiveness in advance for any shortcomings. In fact, I would be grateful for any ideas, suggestions, or comments you may have to improve the page.

By the way, my sincere thanks and appreciation for visiting the site.

Stay safe, stay calm, stay focused, stay relaxed but above all keep on writing (or reading if that’s your thing).

With warm regards,
Asif R. Chowdhury