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Writing about writing in the head

Writing in the head can be quite a task.

I spent the whole day on my feet today, doing simultaneous technical interpretation. At a training. At a cigarette factory.

On one hand there was the noise above which everyone, including me, had to shout. Also the foreign words thrown at my poor brain, which sent it juggling and scrambling for equivalent English words.

But on the other hand, a part of me kept writing the story of a chain smoker, working at a cigarette factory, trying to quit.

Sometimes, living and writing in the head is the only way to make a long day go quicker. Now, off to bed, and write in my dreams.

Damyanti Biswas

Damyanti Biswas is the author of You Beneath Your Skin and numerous short stories that have been published in magazines and anthologies in the US, the UK, and Asia. She has been shortlisted for Best Small Fictions and Bath Novel Awards and is co-editor of the Forge Literary Magazine. Her literary crime thriller series, the Blue Mumbai, is represented by Lucienne Diver from The Knight Agency. Both The Blue Bar and The Blue Monsoon were published in 2023.

I appreciate comments, and I always visit back. If you're having trouble commenting, let me know via the contact form, or tweet me up @damyantig !

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2 Comments

  • Damyanti says:

    Sounds familiar, Scott. Heading over to your blog to get updated on your book!

  • I do this all the time, and if I think it's a good story, I struggle to hold the entire thing in my head until I can get home and scribble it down, living in two worlds at once until then (the real world and the world of the story) and trying to attend to both.