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Skating & Digging

I’m not the kind of girl who is likely to mistake the golden crust of an apple pie for the whole pie – I know there is gooey, cinnamony goodness below. And even though I know that the hard, glittering layer of ice glazed over fresh powdery snow after an ice storm covers something soft and light, I sometimes hesitate to disturb it with my Bugabootoos. It’s so beautiful and intact, before the dogs come along and pee on it, before the kids tear it up for snowball fights. I don’t mistake the perfect surface of anything for the whole thing – but still, I have to be persuaded to go below. And it’s not because I’m scared of what I’ll find there. And it’s not because what’s there isn’t also very tempting.

The truth is that it takes work to access the good stuff. It’s tedious. It’s annoying. It’s not always the kind of work that yields something valuable right away. You can be compelled to write, and then write a bunch of crap. You can sit down intending to write one thing, and then wonder why something entirely different is coming from your fingertips. Often, I write, get frustrated, leave my desk, come back again. I must have done that at least seven times yesterday morning. If it wasn’t for NaNoWriMo, I would have given up to organize the spices in my cupboard. Finally, the eighth time, I broke into the deep nourishment and exploration, untethered. That feeling is the reason why I write. That feeling is incredibly nutritious for the soul. It’s so profoundly spiritual; who “I” am completely dissolves away and it’s just this awesome flow.

When it comes to anything which needs to be done deeply and done right, it’s tempting to skate over it, or give it a “lick and a promise”, as my Mom would say. If we want it to be worth our efforts, we need to grab the fork, take off the mittens, and dig in. I think this is one thing NaNo is after – with the focus on quantity, we dig and dig and dig, and we aren’t allowed to give up. Eventually, if only out of sheer persistence, we actually write something we like. And hopefully it’s something we need to write, and ideally it’s something others need to read.

I think in some ways this ties into the “triggering subject” Alice LaPlante writes about in The Making of a Story. The thing that prompts us to initially sit to write is often not the thing we really want to write. Otherwise, writing would be merely an act of transcription. Rather, LaPlante says that writing is ‘a process of discovery’.

NaNoWriMo 2009

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Happy Halloween - NaNo Begins! Not the most flattering visage of Mr. Leo, but it makes me laugh all the same.

Samhain approaches and brings a lot of goodies with it. I went to the store and bought Halloween candy, and I’m wearing my jingling pumpkin earrings. We’re carving jack o lanterns. As far as Halloween goes, I’m golden. but at midnight, that’s when the real spooks and goblins come out. Nanowrimo 2009 will be here when the clock strikes twelve, and I am ill-prepared. I want to win this year. I’m not psyched out, I’m more just kind of calm and wondering if I can do it.

A lot of my fellow Nanoers have created hefty plot outlines, full backstories on characters, have created soundtracks, have researched all types of methodologies to best craft their work. Me? I kind of just want to see what the baby who shows up on my doorstep is going to look like. I got married last week, so haven’t had the focus to get all Nano’d up. Partially I think this is a good thing. In another way, I’m kind of freaked out.

Still, a couple characters I’ve played around with in the past are stepping forward. I’ve never had to wrangle a character through the duration of a novel, but I reckon this year will be the year to learn. Usually, I just let them do what they want. As far as being a Novel Mommy goes, I guess I’m the kind that lets her characters smear chocolate all over her white suede couch just because they look so darn cute doing it. The thing is if you keep going at that rate, you’re getting a phone call at 2 AM to bail them out of jail.

When Sun was having one of his many 2-hour rebandaging sessions, a nurse said to him that he used to ride motorcycles and then moved over into photography. Mr. Nurse said a lot riders talk more about riding than actually doing it. The gear is just so cool. The road is exhilarating but can be dangerous. The same can easily be said about writers and writing. For myself and a lot of other writers, it can be so tempting and easy to talk about writing in workshops and forums, think about writing, and plan to write that the actual writing never occurs. I mean, I can get so absorbed in preparing the chai to set the mood for writing that I’ll actually prefer to grind my cardamom with a mortar and pestle than actually sit down in a chair and face the page. Hand ground? Pre-ground? Pre-ground & mixed? Procrastinators can appreciate the murky territory of even attempting to make a cuppa when there’s fiction to be written.

chai fixins

The Procrastinatory Writer's Dilemma

That’s my relationship with fiction. Poetry comes like a lightning bolt, essays and creative nonfiction come with thoughtful reflection, journals entries are like taking out the trash or getting my eyebrows waxed (a necessary maintenance), and morning pages are like drinking water each morning. But fiction? Fiction I struggle with. I think one of the biggest problems is I take it too damn seriously.

Enter NaNoWriMo, a month where the focus is on output and not quality. My goal for Nano this year is really just to have fun and loosen up. I intend to think of it as a month of intense play rather than a frenzied month trying to do something great. Whenever I try to do something great, it’s usually mediocre at best. So, I’m going to have fun. I’m not going to write the great American novel, but I am going to play. This should feel like coasting downhill in the snow more than trudging up hill with sled in tow.

So Happy Halloween, and Happy Trails, to my fellow Nanoers, procrastinators, witches, bibliophiles, and lovers of Reese’s pumpkin eggs. This is our night! This is our month!

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Essentials: Chocolate. Candle. Elements of Style, No Plot No Problem, Making of a Story. Antics of something furry.

Changes

I’ll be changing my blog around in the coming weeks to focus more on the writing process, creativity, books & literature, and library science. The last few months my creative life has spiked upward – not that you would detect that from my absence in all things bloggy. My blog’s lack of focus has been annoying me for a while, enough to make me consider disposing of it entirely. However, I’ve finally had the time and space for reflection and have reached some clarity.

A Good Traveler has served my original intentions, which were essentially to create a blog in the first place, and to have a marked space to document a large transition in my life. That done, what next? I like the prospect of building community and reaching out to other writers, creatives, and bibliophiles. I’ve met some cool people through this site and hope to continue to do so. Even when I am not blogging, I am still writing every day – poetry, journals, morning pages, fiction, essays. This blog will continue to be a space for that.

I have discovered how uncomfortable blogging publicly about my intercultural (American and South Asian Indian) relationship makes me, yet it is also a topic that (judging the hits on my site) people seem to want to know more about and need a little extra support with in terms of their own relationships. I place a lot of value on the seva aspects of the written word and think it’s important to continue to reach out. I just want to do so with privacy as a key factor. Another (anonymous) blog highlighting the masala couple aspects of my life is in the works, but not likely to arrive before NaNoWriMo ends.

In the meantime, I am psyching myself up to begin NaNoWriMo 2009 and have my sights set on winning this year. Since I was married this month I was happily distracted from any sort of intensive outlining, back story, or plot. I did, however, take time to read Chris Baty’s No Plot, No Problem - so I’m comforted that opening the door on November 1 to see what the baby on my doorstep looks like is a viable option. Only in Nano world!

Cheers all, and thanks for your support through my journey. This is by no means the end but a shift in perspective.

Illumination!

Happy Diwali/Deepavali, all!

May blessings, prosperity, and light abound in the coming year!

My First Diyas

My First Diyas

More Diyas

More Diyas

Diyas...

Diyas...

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