Payal Dhar's Blog: Writer's Log, page 12

Week #43: Catching up with other kiddy writers

The reason I’ve been late with blog posts these past weeks is that I’m in Bangalore. And whenever I’m in Bangalore, meeting up with various people is always high on the agenda, including some of my writerly friends. A few day back, some of us managed to catch up. Tea and sandwiches were consumed, publishing gossip exchanged, grievances aired and in-jokes laughed at. Overall, very satisfying. Here are the people I met:

Radha H.S.

Is a writer, illustrator and puzzle maker, Radha and I met at the first Jumpstart writers’ workshop. Even though we met in Delhi, we were, oddly enough, both living in Bangalore, and among the very few out-of-towners at the workshop. Radha writes and illustrates for young children, including rebus stories (before I met her, I thought “rebus” was the name of on my favourite fictional police detective). She also makes puzzles, for kids and adults, and dabbles in some non-fiction at times.

Harini Gopalswami Srinivasan

Is the author of Gind and the The Smile of Vanuvati. She’s also working on a multi-volume Ramanaya for ACK Media (better known by its earlier name, Amar Chitra Katha) of which one is currently out. You can usually find Harini poring over thick, dusty volumes of ‘research’ or chasing after her dogs. She also knows a great deal about mythology and history, and, it turns out, geology.

Roopa Pai

Target readers will (should) find this name familiar. I was much excited to meet Roopa many years back because of the Target connection. She’s always writing about (and doing) interesting things, such as the eight-volume Taranauts and Bangalore Walks. Her new book What if the Earth Stopped Spinning? And 24 Other Mysteries of Science seems like a fun read.

~PD

Week #42: Thinking about language

The offspring of my sibling is awaiting a brother or sister any day now. Thus, every morning, the first question that gets asked is: “Has Zoe [the name given to the impending baby (I don't know why!)] camed out yet?” No amount of coaxing and explaning has resulted in a grammatical correction. In fact, we’re now all talking about Zoe being “camed out” as well.

Apart from the side-splitting mirth that “came-ing out”, “skipes” (spikes) and “oosh” (shoe) have brought me over the years, it has been fascinating observing how a baby, toddler and now a small child develops language skills. Yet, oddly enough, I’ve been blogging about reading and writing for 42 weeks now (late this week; travelling; apologies), and yet not one post has been on the subject of language, without with both reading and writing would be impossible.

In fact, the only reason I started thinking about language was because of this amazing language tree. Funny how we rarely think of where all the words came from, where they keep coming from.

Do we take language for granted? After all, without it, we wouldn’t be able to read, write, communicate. Heck, we can’t even think without language. So where did it all start? From a prehistoric grunt? How do animals manage without it? Is it language that sets us apart from other animals? How did words come into being, to mean certain things? Why are languages so different? And why are languages so similar?

The language tree answers some of these questions, but yet others remain. However, there is one thing we do know—language isn’t something that just is; it is something that grows and changes with time and the human experience. Every year, Oxford Dictionaries Online adds about 1,000 new entries. And this is just English. And not only do new words come into being, old ones get booted into obscurity, and some existing ones take on new meanings. It is estimated that a new word is created every 98 minutes, that is, around 14.7 per day. Phew.

In other words, this language thing, it’s not quite set in stone, is it? (Even though I declare “phablet” was a mistake and is the worst word ever!) Can you imagine civilization without language? Just think of all those books never written, never read…

~PD

Week #41: Killing some darlings

This has been a busy week—you see, I killed some of my darlings.

I’m not completely sure who this priceless bit of advice originally came from. But Stephen King probably has the best take on it with his “kill your darlings, kill your darlings, even when it breaks your egocentric little scribbler’s heart, kill your darlings” in his On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft (every writer should read it!).

Thus, it was decided to make some homicidal changes to a particular project (which we shall not mention here) that I’ve been working on for so long that it’s become more of a joke and less of a feasible book. But the thing about murderous intentions is that there is a good chance of regretting it later. Here are a few things I do to make the process easier:

Document versions: When I know that there will be only minor changes, I just save the file with a new version number (say, “Long_and_Pointless_Story_v1,0″ becomes “Long_and_Pointless_Story_v1,1″ or “v2,0″, depending on how minor the changes will be or my mood). This lets me quickly read through the story so far and put in or remove the teeny little plot point that I’ve decided to change.

A “deleted” document: Usually, I also keep a “Long_and_Pointless_Story-DELETED” document where I paste the bits that have been cut out. I find it makes it easier to pull them out and reinstate them if needed, whole or part.

Start with a blank page: Literally. Sometimes there is no saving it and you just have to abandon your ghastly little poppet.

Kill someone: Again, literally. In your story, silly. What did you think?!

Well, in this case, this egocentric little scribbler’s heart bled a bit, but it’ll live. No one had to die (you can relax, Marie); even though some of my favourite passages will never see light of day. Neither did I have to abandon years of work and start from scratch.

The darlings are dead and this manuscript may yet become a book some day. Some day.

~PD

Week #40: Seven days and six books

Yep, that’s how many new books I’ve got myself over the past week. Let’s see:

The Screaming Staircase (Jonathan Stroud): This has been on my list since Week #3 and I thought I already had it. Well, it turns out I didn’t (or I have a copy stashed away somewhere that I can’t see) and when I finally came across it in Midlands, Delhi, I grabbed it. This series is about Lockwood & Co., an investigative agency that investigates ghostly things.
Punishment (Anne Holt): The first book of the Johanne Vik/Adam Stubø series that I mentioned last week.
Blessed Are Those Who Thirst (Anne Holt): Another Anne Holt, this one being the second book in the Hanne Wilhelmsen series.
Darkness Be My Friend (John Marsden): Book four of the Tomorrow series, about a group of teenagers who are on the run when Australia is invaded by a foreign power. Narrated by Ellie Linton and—as I never tire of repeating—one of the most fantastic-est female character in YA literature in my ‘umble opinion.
Snakes & Ladders (Sean Slater): A new author. A new series. On the recommendation of the Midlands bookseller. Slater is a Canadian writer and was once a police detective. (And Sean Slater isn’t his real name either.) Needles to say, this is a story about catching a killer. Can’t wait to read this one.
The Lost Boy (Camilla Lackberg): I had mixed feelings about Lackberg’s first book, Ice Princess, but was persuaded to give the series another go. This is not the second but the seventh book in the Erica Falck/Patrick Hedstrom series by the Swedish author.

Meanwhile, I’m about a third of my way through J.K. Rowling writing as Robert Galbraith—The Silkworm. As in the Cuckoo’s Calling, the narration is sublime, but one needs to skim in places where the description gets too much.

← and that’s my happy face.

~PD

Week #39: Discovering Anne Holt

Disovering a new author is always fun, and when their writing combines two of my favourite things—crime and Scandinavia—it’s that much more fun. Anne Holt has often been described as ‘the Val McDermid of Norway’, but I would beg to differ. Apart from the fact that they both write crime fiction, there is nothing similar about them. Would you call Ian Rankin the ‘Reginald Hill of Scotland’? Bah!

Anyway, I digress. The first Anne Holt I read was 1222. It was the eighth book in the Hanne Wilhelmson series, but the first to be translated to English. A sort of locked-room-mystery, in 1222, after a train derails following a blizzard, the rescued passengers are holed up in a hotel nearby as the storm rages on. Of course, a murder takes place, and the irascible wheelchair-bound and retired police officer Hanne Wilhelmsen reluctantly finds herself with a case on her hands.

1222 did well and, subseqently, the other books were translated as well. So I decided to start from the beginning, with The Blind Goddess. In it, Hanne Wilhelmsen makes a late entry and shares story space with a number of other characters, mainly police prosecutor Håkon Sand. A murder opens the story, but we end up with a drugs-related conspiracy and high-level government corruption that rattles Oslo.

It is easy to see how much the characters and storytelling have developed from the first book to the eighth. For one, The Blind Goddess was somewhat of an effort to read. For another, without having read 1222, I’m not sure how much of a feel one would have got for Hanne or even taken much of an interest in her. One wouldn’t guess that the rest of the series was going to be devoted to her. I am guessing the translation is to blame for the flat storytelling in Blind Goddess, though I’m keen to read through the series to find out how Hanne ended up in a wheelchair and how she changed from an easygoing, friendly sort to a bit of a grump. The second book, Blessed Are Those Who Thirst, is waiting in my Kobo ereader right now. If I like it, I’ll do a review of the whole series.

Anne Holt’s other series of note features Johanne Vik, an Oslo University psychology professor, and Adam Stubø, a detective inspector and former FBI profiler. These are also crime novels based in Oslo. Book one, Punishment (also published as What is Mine [why do they have to change names and confuse us?!]), is also awaiting my attention.

Holt has been a journalist, news anchor, lawyer (who worked for the police and also founded her own agency) and also Norway’s minister of justice. Clearly, she knows what she is writing about. Plus, she has a character awaiting interesting developments in her life. Reason enough for a crime fiction connoisseur to dig in.

~PD

Week #38: Eat the Sky, Drink the Ocean

What happens when you take twenty writers and illustrators and ask them to imagine the future? Well, something fantastic and magical, you can be sure. We know because we did it. And the result is Eat the Sky, Drink the Ocean, a collection of young adult speculative fiction—including six graphic stories.

Eat the Sky, Drink the Ocean. Coming soon from Young Zubaan & Allen and Unwin!

Eat the Sky… is also a unique collaborative project. It brought together ten storytellers each from India and Australia with the brief to re-imagine the world from a feminist perspective. To think about the futures of girls and boys, men and women, of humanity. To go beyond what we know, to mess with the boundaries of the possible and the probable. And in this task, each of the contributors was paired with a partner from across the seas.

Some worked together to create a single story; others exchanged notes and ideas on their interpretation of the theme. The sixteen stories in this collection traverse to dystopian worlds and distant galaxies; they mess with history and travel in time; there is a fairy tale like you’ve never heard it before and even some Shakespeare. And if you thought a speculative feminist collection would be all about girls, you’d be wrong—many of the stories are just as much about boys.

The contributors: Kate Constable, Priya Kuriyan, Justine Larbalestier, Anita Roy, Annie Zaidi, Mandy Ord, Samhita Arni, Alyssa Brugman, Kuzhali Manickavel, Lily Mae Martin, Margo Lanagan, Kirsty Murray, Manjula Padmanabhan, Amruta Patil, Vandana Singh, Isobelle Carmody, Prabha Mallya, Penni Russon, Payal Dhar and Nicky Greenberg.

The editors: Kirsty Murray, Payal Dhar and Anita Roy.

The cover image: Priya Kuriyan.

~PD

Week #37: My top 10 young adult reads

This list is a result of the Indiblogger #loveofreading topic, asking bloggers to list their 10 favourite books. So I thought I’d put my own spin on things and make it about the young adult novels I loved most. (Disclaimer: My top 10 is subject to change at any time, without any reason!) So here we are in no particular order:

1. Boys Don’t Cry (Malorie Blackman): Don’t confuse this with the movie. Boy’s Don’t Cry is a story about teenage parenthood — but here’s the catch, the parent in question is the father. Seventeen-year-old Dante’s dreams are dashed when he’s literally left holding the baby daughter he never knew he had. Overnight, he is forced to exchange books and lessons for nappies and formula. A hard-hitting story from an unusual perspective.

2. Maggot Moon (Sally Gardner): More about this one here.

3. Mayil Will Not Be Quiet (Niveditha Subramaniam and Sowmya Rajendran): Mayil is an entertaining and irrepressible 12-year-old, and her diary will leave you in splits, and we aren’t even talking about the illustrations. But it’s not all ha-ha-hee-hee, for Mayil Will Not Be Quiet is a telling glimpse in what it’s like to be a youngster in urban India today.

4. Faces in the Water (Ranjit Lal): When Gurmi meets the sisters he never had, he realizes his family’s dark secret. Faces in the Water focuses on our society’s ghastliest evil, its silent complicity in the killing of baby girls and aborting of female foetuses, making just the right song and dance about it, and even ending in an upbeat tone. Only Ranjit Lal could have pulled this off.

5. Ocean at the End of the Lane (Neil Gaiman): An unnamed narrator returns to his childhood home and harkens back to the time when he was seven years old and had a remarkable friend called Lettie Hempstock. Ocean… encompasses an entire universe and more in a farmhouse pond, and compels you to ask if this is indeed one of greatest stories every told.

6. To Kill a Mockingbird (Harper Lee): Do I really have to elaborate?

7. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (J.K. Rowling): My favourite Harry Potter book. I believe the series peaked with this one and then took somewhat of a downhill slide. Which is quite a telling statement in itself.

8. First Test (Tamora Pierce): Keladry of Mindelan wants to become a knight, and even though the new laws decree that girls may train as knights, small minds question her at every step. Three other books follow this one in the Protector of the Small quartet, all of them great fun.

9. Small Steps (Louis Sachar): It has been a few years since ‘Armpit’ Johnson got out of Camp Green Lake juvenile detention centre and he is determined to turn his life around. He really is a good guy, though people always expect the worst from him. Except Ginny, his 10-year-old neighbour with cerebral palsy, who he takes care of, and together they are learning to take small steps. Then circumstances lead him to meeting teenage popstar Kaira DeLeon. A heart-warming story about loyalty and friendship and doing the right thing.

10. Dog Stories (James Herriot): Not strictly a YA novel, heck, it’s not even fiction. This is a collection of James Herriot’s dog stories from his extensive memoirs. There are stories that will make you laugh and some that will make you cry, but for a reader and a dog lover, I believe, if you haven’t read this, there’s a hole in your life.

~PD

Week #36: Stories from Okhla

What’s special about your home? That was the question that filmmaker and fellow writer Samina Mishra and her friend Sherna Dastur asked about two dozen children in Okhla, Delhi. In reply, they wrote and drew about their lives and their homes, about ‘the terraces, mosques and train tracks that lead to the villages that their families came from’. And the result was My Sweet Home, a book that explores this ‘busy, congested area that is teeming with stories that the newspapers and television don’t bother with’.

Once upon a time, Okhla was a small village on the outskirts of Delhi, which was eventually swallowed up by the gluttonous expansion of the capital. This is also the area that houses Jamia Millia Islamia, the historic university, established in Aligarh in 1920 during the nationalist struggle, moved to Delhi five years later, and to its current location starting in the late 1930s. The area developed and more and more people moved in. Today, there are mostly Muslim families, many of whom have moved here because of communal tension and intolerance, which makes it hard to find homes in other parts of Delhi. The growing population has led to infrastructure problems, but people still ‘throng to this “Muslim area.” In September 2008, Batla House, a locality in this area was the site of an “encounter” between the Delhi Police and some young boys who the police claimed were terrorists. The much-televised encounter thrust Okhla onto the national centre-stage and the area became synonymous with the image of a Muslim ghetto harbouring terrorists and fomenting fundamentalism, if not separatism.’

The My Sweet Home project began when Samina, who has lived in Okhla, started to wonder about

what was missing that could connect Okhla’s story to the story of other neighbourhoods in other cities and so let people interact with each other in ways that the television and news stories did not let them. The answer I felt was — everyday life… in which people go to work and children go to school, in which birthdays are celebrated and kites flown, in which exams are taken, friendships made and broken, cricket matches played. Stories of everyday life tell us what we have in common with this space and what is special about it.

It was these stories of everyday life that the children in the workshop wrote and drew about, and from which resulted the book My Sweet Home: Childhood Stories from a Corner of a City. The book is currently in production, but you can find out more about this amazing project here.

~PD

Week #35: Freelance blogging for money?

Even though I call myself a writer, I spend a goodly portion of my working life not writing. Unless I’ve just signed a book contract, most of my income comes from copy-editing rather than writing. Most of the time, I don’t think it’s a bad way to earn a living. But that’s not to say it doesn’t get frustrating editing other people’s rubbish rather than writing my own.

If I love it so much, why don’t I write more? The answer’s simple: it isn’t always easy to get regular paid writing work and as I said earlier, I’m not a great fan of writing for free. Thus, I’m always on the lookout for more writing opportunities, and recently have been exploring blogging.

Not too long ago, I would laugh at the very term ‘paid blogging’. Blogs that pay you to write? You mean real money? *die laughing* Most of the blogs I’ve come across are always looking for guest bloggers, but they are usually not interested in paying for content. (The notable exception was when I wrote for JustFemme.in, run by journalist, filmmaker and runner [and now friend] Padmalatha Ravi.)

Thus, I was intrigued and interested when I came across BeaFreelanceBlogger.com, which talks about the reality of earning a living from blogging. (No, not being clever there: it is possible to earn a full-time income from blogging, says blog owner Sophie Lizard, who learnt it by doing.) So not only will you find a downloadable list of blogs that pay (availabe on signing up), there are resources about how to get started (including courses and mentoring, which don’t come cheap) and a user forum.

I have to admit, I haven’t yet used any of Sophie’s resources (apart from downloading the free Ultimate List of Better-Paid Blogging Gigs) and have no guarantee that this is a sure-fire way to blogging-for-a-living success. If I find out one way or another, I’ll make sure to let you know.

~PD

Week #34: Inspired in Germany

On my latest travels, in Germany, I started off in Berlin being suitably umimpressed. This wasn’t my idea of a European capital—it was sort of seedy and overgrown, with a distinct lack of pretty. But the more time I spent, the more it grew on me. By the time I left a week later, I was in a state of being highly inspired, especially by the history and subculture. And then I went on to Leipzig and the ideas kept hitting me. Here are three things that inspired me in Germany and I’m hoping they’ll feature in some future fantasy works:

The Berlin Wall, or the Berliner Mauer, went up in 1961 and came down in 1989, and was symbolic of a divided (and then reunified) country. (It was more than symbolic, of course, but that’s another story. You cannot escape the Wall and the history surrounding it in Berlin. One place where it is still standing is the 1.6 km in what is known as the East Side Gallery, so-called because it is now covered with a variety of art works. Not just that, there is the paved wall trail, as in Postdamer Platz, cutting right across the roads and pavements. If the idea of a wall separating two worlds doesn’t sound like a perfect fantasy setting, what does?!

The Sachsenhausen Museum and Memorial is a former concentration camp in Oranienburg, just outside Berlin. We ended up on a Monday, when the museums are closed, but the rest of the place is open. It has been turned into a memorial site, but visitors can walk around and take a look at the camp and its buildings. Much of the original structures are gone, but you can still see a reconstructed barracks, the kitchens, guard towers, perimeter fence, the “shoe-testing” track, execution trench, guard towers, prisons, and the cremation ovens and other rooms where people were murdered. Admittedly not a particularly inspiring setting, but it would be intriguing to work out a story about escaping from one of these places.

The Stasi Museum—its real name is Museum in der Runden Ecke or Museum in the Round Corner—is located in the former headquarters of the Stasi in the district of Leipzig. A lot of the “original environment” of the offices have been preserved to give visitors a sense of how the Ministerium für Staatssicherheit (Ministry for State Security) worked. The museum speaks of its vast network of “unofficial” staff who spied on citizens, and displays the various methods of doing do. There is also a preserved office, a jail cell and various other exhibits related to the functioning of the Stasi. A paranoid security organization that spies on innocent people—you can just see the possibilities there, can’t you?

Oh well, the best laid plans. Time will tell what comes of these…

~PD