Le nouveau autor

As far back as I can remember, no other place in the world has ever held higher appeal for me than a library or even better a book shop. Rows and rows of colourful spines with titles from the great and glorious stacked neatly in place. There is history in these places. You can sense the air of mystery and almost feel the invisible ideas and stories floating all about you. I remember always walking in eagerly and not knowing which way to turn first in the euphoric excitement of the initial moments. I eventually always made it to the racks that held the books written by my favourite authors. But just the thought of discovering new writers, genres, perhaps growing into reading titles I was still too young to grasp always left me with this hopeful feeling of endless possibilities and discoveries.

People, their thoughts, their ideas and the essence of their lives live on forever in their books. I know this is a much repeated line but if you just stand still for a moment in a library and let the line sink in to the very depths of your soul you'll be able to see wispy floating caricatures of Charles Dickens writing in his cozy study with a felt pen, Enid Blyton sitting in a green meadow and dreaming up her next adventure, Alexandre Dumas perhaps casually moving his sword in the air plotting the next fencing sequence and Sir Arthur Doyle creating Sherlock Holmes from thin air in the fictitious 221B Baker Street residence.

My books meant everything to me. Even today after moving at least two flats a year I have a small sized collection of about 15-20 books in my room at all times. It's my security blanket. It's my escape into a world that welcomes you with arms wide open. Even though each story is new and each scenario painted is novel, it all feels more familiar than any moment lived in the real world. The magic that my mind conjures in the moments of reading a scene live on as memories. I seem to look back upon my 'imaginative' memories sometimes with even more affection than I do the real ones, made of real moments. Am sure this is not a psychological issue but a quirk shared by all book lovers! ;-)

I seem to have digressed completely. What I wanted to talk about was my dream of being an author; or writing stories and essays and poetry that people would love to read; of being famous for the wild fantasies I'm able to make come true for my readers; of creating unforgettable 'imaginative' memories for them. I wanted to be on one of those colourful spines in a library or book shop. The dream lives on today and is irreplaceable on the top of my list of deepest desires.

There are millions of writers who blog today. Millions of voices with thoughts and ideas living their dream through a blog. One argument is getting lost in this sea 'typed' as another mundane voice. However, with the modern  day phenomenon of blogging the dream seems more real and attainable. Writing regularly on a blog and having a handful of followers can never make up for the beautiful fantasy of being a well renowned author but it definitely provides a platform to assuage that ambition, to hone the skill, to keep the hope alive of someday writing something worthy of being published.

It also makes the entire process of writing a book open to the common man. You and me can write and so can John Grisham and Phillippa Gregory. It's the birth of 'le nouveau autor' who is not magnificent and whose thoughts will not make generations stop and think. But this author will inspire immediate friends and find a confidence in his/her daily existence that the generations before never had.