Aaaaarrrrgghh!!!

Let’s face it. I try to write. And I think I can do that quite well, if only I can get my style down. To my credit, I try hard. Only I know how hard.

All right, maybe you do too, no need to look so sceptical.

I agree, it’s tough. Yes, yes, I know. Right. Roger. Hmmm, I used to say that too. Ohh-kkkayy.
Hey, can I continue my article now? Oh, is that so? Okay, okay, don’t get worked up. Right.

Where was I? I try to write. I try hard. Wait. I’ve already said that.

The point – yes, I have a point, and I’m getting there – is this: I suffer from the too-many-authors syndrome. I have read too many authors, and have loved too many. Authors, not bimbettes of the opposite sex. Though, come to think of it, that may also be tru—

I digress. Sorry.

I have loved too many authors. Which ones, you ask?

Well, lemme see. Wodehouse, MacLean, Carr (John Dickson, not Caleb), Herbert (Frank), Rex Stout, Delany, Chesterton.

Hence, my writing tends to have tinges of all these. In a way, it is tainted. I can be overly serious, or I can be overly funny, or I can be a gooey something-in-the-middle-of-these-two. Usually, I start out in one style and gradually progress to another, and thence to another. Very troublesome for my readers (so far, they number half the fingers of one half of one of my hands), for you see, they have to “drift in and out”. Tiresome.

I have been trying to rectify this, but then, every time a solution is nigh, something else crops up. I either lose track of my subject, or I lose interest. Due to these, my writing has tended so far to either tickle or pontificate, and neither well enough to warrant applause. My unusually large vocabulary is also of no use to me, for I almost never seem to use it effectively. All the words are in the wrong places (just go read one of my pieces). The long ones are there where none are required. Short, pithy sentences crop up where long ones might have added to the colour. There’s humour that isn’t funny; pathos that isn’t poignant. My writing has it all.

Hence (also, I tend to use certain words a lot. This essay has an overabundance of “hence”.) I am displeased. No wonder, you say. Yes. I agree. What? What was that?

Why? Why what? Why this article?

I’ll tell you.

My friend – what? Oh no, you don’t know him. Ah, okay – called me up today. I told him I started a blog. And he asked me a painful, personal question. “So,” he said. “How many hits do you get per day?”
I clenched my teeth and bit of a piece of my tongue.

What? No, no, I clenched my teeth, and then I bit off a piece of my tongue. No, not really, I didn’t really bite my tongue off. It’s a metaphor. M-E-T-A-P-H-O-R. Right.

So I told him. I guess I don’t have many hits, I said. Let’s see. I have told all my friends to read the blog. Three have remained ominously silent about it, one maintains that the posts are way too long to read, and another – well, it’s the same story for almost all of them. Nothing to say. But I continue to write. In the hope that I may better myself.

What? When will I end this article? Right now, if you want. Why?

Java City? Now? Oh okay, come on. Your treat right?

Chalo.