Showing posts with label edit travails aishwarya amitabh piece. Show all posts
Showing posts with label edit travails aishwarya amitabh piece. Show all posts

Jul 3, 2009

AGONIES AND ECSTASIES OF AN EDIT PIECE

Published in October 2008, Big Hyderabad

Words simply seem to stop somewhere between my eyebrows giving me a migraine up there on my head. Writing an edit is not all that easy sometimes

Every day is not Sunday.
Every movie of Amitabh Bachchan is not a blockbuster.
Aishwarya Rai does not look great in every outfit.
AR Rahman also has a bad air day and belts out average numbers
Shahrukh also has hit rock bottom with his movies.
See, even the super stars of the world falter. The greatest of them tail off in their output.
The super duper successes have had their share of down days.

So how can a diminutive editor come up with great edits every single time, issue after issue, edit after edit?

After the issue comes out, my colleagues tell me ‘It wasn’t like the last issue’ and
it feels like a prick on a balloon. Until the next Edit comes out, the bitter feeling lingers on.

On the face of it, it looks so easy. To write 460 words every month about anything I like. Put in my opinion and pass it off as an Edit. I would probably be among the privileged few if it were all so easy.

As the month trickles down to its last week, there is a nagging ache in my head. At the back of mind, the keywords keep scrolling left to right, like a lazy news ticker after the commercials stop on the 24-hour news channels. No luck yet. What can I possible write about the T20 cricket mania especially since Deccan Chargers have hardly made any breakthrough so far? Somebody at office suggests I talk about the summer in Hyderabad because we are Big Hyderabad. Huh! What about summer. Maybe I should just compare sultry, crowded and complicated Mumbai to lazy, laidback (yawn, yawn) Nawabi… and be done with this month. Oh, that’s been written a zillion times.

Emails from office stating that the Edit is pending pour into my mailbox. Gentle calls and reminders. The damn keywords refuse to take in a concrete shape. Writer’s block!

I open an empty Microsoft Word and grandly name it Big Edit and type our some random Xs and Ys give them my favourite font (usually Comic Sans J and my kind of font (usually 24) and pray fervently that some brilliant idea will dawn upon me. Words simply seem to stop somewhere between my eyebrows giving me a migraine up there on my head.

We are just two days before we put the edition to sleep and send it to print. Zero progress. I decide to sit late night to finish it. Still only three characters (two Xs and one Y) on my MS Word file. I toss and turn at 3 am and walk around to get a glass of water. I peek through the window and hear the police patrol. Maybe I should write about how the police take such good care of our area. I try to think nice things about life at the dead of the night….

The brilliant summer sun rays hit my face and the dreaded fifth of the month has finally dawned. I switch on the television and walk past the room to get hold of the remote on the table. My ankle hits the chair’s leg and an idea sparks off. The travails of an editor!

In the next 18 minutes, 568 words fast and thick. It may not be the best Edit, but it certainly one that has had its share of hard work. Too bad if you don’t appreciate all the work!

-ends