Choking on Words (Writing, A Dangerous Obsession)
So, you thought writing was to be your salvation, that it would save you from obscurity. But what if instead the opposite is true? What if your obsession has got you ‘entrapped’ (as the novelist, Amit Chaudhuri, puts it) and it’s stifling your life?
Such were my thoughts yesterday.
Picture the scene: I’m wheezing at my desk, suffering from a sudden attack of hay-fever. As I search for my asthma spray, a colleague jokes about shoving a pen down my throat to open the airway.
The wheezing soon went – the spray worked its magic – but the image of me choking on a pen stayed on.
Writing has been caught in my throat for a long, long while. Perhaps it’s time I swallowed my pride and gave the game away or coughed the thing up, took a deep breath and got on with the job.
timm in type 