The itch

It's begun. Actually, it was always there, but I wasn't helping it. I let it grow and grow more and more till it became unbearable - the itch. The itch to continue trying to create something - a story, that will live on forever.

I don't know if I am good at it or not. All I know is that I am. I don't know if my creations will ever be appreciated or not. All I know is that I am. That I breathe. That 18 hours of a day, I'm thinking of some or the other book I am going to write... one day, for sure. That I was born to be an author, good or bad, I don't know, recognised or not, I have no idea.

But I can't help it, I write - it's what I do. I think. I imagine imaginary tales, and try and make them sound real.

It's an itch that I've refused to scratch for a long time now. It was a bit of fear, after, I guess, the failure of my previous two works, thinking, I might just scratch it too hard and turn the itch into a wound.

It's a feeling of a hundred complete ideas locked inside you with the key inside your pocket. You're scared, to open the lock, fearing, what if you are not able to do justice to it? For, you know, inside, you're already a best-selling author, only if there was such a technology, that you're mind, you thoughts were attached to an inbuilt computer and a printer. You think of a story, and it's out there in print.

The scary part's when you have to start thinking of what you thought and then re-produce it on paper. It's never as good as you thought it.

That's the scary part.

But the itch has now become unbearable.

I am about to start my third book. I thought, I'll start when I leave Qatar, because there is no inspiration here.

Let truth be told, by choice or compulsion is irrelevant, I'll be in this country, for at least another year and a half. And my itch can't wait that long.

I understood, the inspiration doesn't come from places or people. Inspiration is within you, the only thing blocking it is fear - the fear of failure.

It's time for The Search.