Discovering the Writer in Me

"Why don't you consider writing a book on C++ programming language, Ganesh?".

"Oh no, I am not sure I have such a knowledge to write the book and all. I might be asking a few compelling questions about why a few things in C++ works this way or that way. That does not mean I can write a book.".

Maybe, I underestimated my abilities, or there was no one to mentor me or guide me to write that book. It was a conversation between my friend and me in the US in 2000.

I used to read a lot about the C++ programming language and its design. Once when I had a C++-related technical question, and as no one could give me a satisfying answer, I wrote to Bjarne Stroustrup (he was the creator and developer of the C++ programming language), yet I was thinking, I may not get an answer, because Bjarne would be too busy to reply to such questions from too many people out there.

Surprisingly, he reverted to me over an email with his response. I felt proud of myself. Not just because I got the answer directly from a renowned software language creator, I thought I was seeking to understand more as part of my learning. And I got the reaffirmation that when we continue to seek, understand, and learn, help comes from all corners of the world.

That was the first incident or a phase of my life the idea of writing a book sparked in me.

As it usually happens with us, I forgot about it over the years and rolled on with life.

In the year 2010, when I started running to improve my health, I felt like writing. When I ran alone in the wee morning hours, my mind and heart inadvertently started having many conversations. I needed an outlet to get those thoughts out and give them a shape.

I started blogging.

I just wrote what I felt about running and what I experienced as I ran. I shared about my training regimen and the pure joy that I got from running. It slowly became a part of myself and my daily living.

I went on a trip; I wanted to write about it. I finished a race; I wanted to write about it.

Many people on reading my blogs kept encouraging me to keep writing as it helped them get a few training tips apart from offering them a virtual visual of my travel experiences.

Years passed. I ran distances like 10K, Half Marathon, Marathon, and Ultramarathons. I wrote about all of them.

When I became an ultramarathoner in 2015, the idea of writing a book sparked back in me again. The idea was to write a book about my running journey, sharing how I got inspired about my own health and wellness. And how I could pass that inspiration to people around me with any other information that could help them become Inspired and Holistic in their running and wellness.

I started writing. I came up with a few chapter names and contents. I quickly realized I might have to run a few more races to gain additional experience. The idea was that I thought I had some more work to do to earn that wisdom about running and wellness before writing the book.

So, I decided to give it some more time as I ran more races and trained more. As I foresaw, I went through DNFs, Injuries, and Burnout experiences out of my ultra-running journey. I indeed became holistic in how I approached running through all those experiences to arrive at a holistic view about how to take care of our wellbeing (wellbeing is more than just wellness!), achieving it through running or other means.

I learned running techniques, hydration, fuel, resting, cross-training, developing strength, nutrition, and recovering between runs or workouts. I started defining meaningful goals with my running. I ran just for my wellness and the joy of running. The number of races that I ran came down. And it didn't concern me at all.

My focus also went into learning the sport as I became a running coach to train people.

I came across a trainee who was already a published author. She rekindled the intention in me to write my long-pending running book. She gave me a lot of insights about how I should approach writing the book, giving it a timeline and a shape. I again found my interest back to continue writing for the book.

With life throwing unforeseen challenges (mostly my work, taking my time away from writing), I could not write as much as I wanted to.

The year 2020 came. Covid-19 Pandemic threw many challenges over, which took many lives away, including one of my close undergraduate friends. It gave me a lot of time to do more introspecting, reflecting, reading, and practicing writing.

I joined a group of like-minded people to start polishing my writing habit. I was writing well, but I missed many value-adding elements. We met weekly once, on weekends, spending about 1.5 to 2 hours. We took many topics to write about and reviewed each other's work by sharing feedback. Towards the end of 2020, I decided to hop on my writing of the book again. This time, the focus was crystal clear. I wrote every day, and I improved every day. I finished writing the book in about April '21. I hired an editor to edit and proofread.

I also signed up with an author who had authored many books and offered a book launching course. As it was my debut book, I decided to do self-publishing on Amazon.

The learning was fascinating. Every day I learned about an element of writing, editing, proofreading, or publishing. I would paraphrase my journey of becoming an author (the intense focus of editing the book!) and a writer like this.

I became an author by not writing the book but by editing it relentlessly.

I successfully published the book on 19th Aug 2021. The book (BE A RUNNER FOREVER) is available in both Kindle and Paperback formats.

It was one of my long-pending endeavors and a dream. It helped me reflect on a part of my life through my own eyes as I wrote the book.

Writing is something that made me become more honest with myself and with the world. The book has all unfiltered content. Whatever was there in my head and heart came out in the book. Many thanks to the editor; I learned to cut down some of the stretching sentences and paragraphs while it was coming in the way of core message delivery.

Writing the book made me do a lot of research, reading many books by ultra-running legends, reflecting deeper on what I want to deliver through this book apart from actually writing it. My clarity of thoughts got polished to a great extent.

I started writing on vocal.media in parallel because I came across so many questions about the various issues that the runners were facing across the globe. I gained access to these questions by joining a few Facebook groups and spending a few minutes reading through these questions.

Writing became a part of daily living. Whether I write or not, my thinking and feeling brain always had a corner to absorb inspiration from things around me.

Anyone can write.

One needs the courage to write, at the core. Why? Because as a writer, you don't say or write a word which you don't approve of. Even when you are not sure about something, you say that as it is, as you write. You don't feel bad about it. We all are humans. We can go through our own lives, gaining authentic experiences to share.

One needs to have the conviction that he/she can write and help people through his/her writing. One can easily get lost in this modern world, where content is everywhere. The self-deprecating question of how I could ever make a difference through my writing can kill our confidence and conviction about writing.

One needs to read. A lot. Fiercely. Books are the backbone of our writing process. The more one reads and reflects, there are better chances to create new insightful world-helping content.

A creator grasps a whole of things from this world, and it could be tough at times on the self, but that's where the real creators are born. They can stand there with the sheer belief that they are here to write and bring in a change in this very world.

As much as my running journey has hindrances, I face challenges in my writing journey as well. But I don't plan to stop. I know, somewhere inside me, that I have a writer in me. I want to nurture that skill in me. I believe that I can offer value to people through my writing.

As I write this article, I am already working on my second book. And more ideas are popping out for a few more books as I read more and more.

That's my story about how I started my writing habit and the dream to become an author and a writer, and where I am with it today.

Seek inspiration.

Discover your strengths. Nurture them.

Anyone can write.

Writing will change your life and the world for good.

Keep Writing. Keep inspiring. Live an inspired life through writing.

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