Payal Dhar's Blog: Writer's Log, page 15

Week #14: The Night Watch, a review

Finally, a book review: Sarah Waters’ The Night Watch, a riveting and most peculiar novel, mostly because the story is told in reverse.

This is what the blurb has to say about it:

Tender and tragic, set against the turbulent backdrop of wartime Britain…. Moving back through the 1940s, through air raids, blacked-out streets, illicit liaisons and sexual adventure, to end with its beginning in 1941, this is an astonishing novel.

To find out what I thought, read the full review here.

Have you read this book or more of Sarah Waters’ work? What did you think?

~PD

Week #13: A report from CCLF 2014

Last week I spent a day at the Chandigarh Children’s Literature Festival 2014, hanging out with readers and schoolchildren from the city as well as hobnobbing with fellow authors and storytellers.

My session was titled “Unwelcome guests: Is a ghost in your PC ever good news?” It was an interactive one-hour session, where the audience and I exchanged notes about various spooky stuff. There was some reading from my book There’s a Ghost in My PC, followed by some more exchanges about strangers and other unwelcome guests, in computers or otherwise.

The kids ranged in age from about 8 to 15 and, compared to a similar session I’d done in a Delhi school, they were impressively aware of cybersecurity. Interestingly, very few were on social media (that is, Facebook) and were suitably circumspect about computers that started talking to you for no reason.

The session ended with a lucky draw, where three of the kids won a copy of There’s a Ghost in My PC. There was also a handout titled “Staying Safe is Important” that was distributed to the audience. (The safety tips are simple things young people can do to stay safe. If anyone wants a copy, please get in touch here or through the Facebook page.)

The other fun thing about this trip was that I got to hang out with other authors and illustrators. Samina Mishra, Priya Kuriyan, Ranjit Lal, Devika Rangachari, Sampurna Chattarji, Srivi Kalyan and Shweta Taneja, to name some. We even managed some sightseeing—Sukhna Lake and the astounding Rock Garden created by Nek Chand.

~PD

(Photo credit: Priya Kuriyan)

Week #12: The best writing advice I’ve got

They say that you either got it or you don’t. That you’re born with it and you cannot be taught it. How to write, that is.

Be that as it may, there are a lot of things we can do to become better writers and one of those is listen to advice from those who do it better than we do. Thus, in an attempt to leave the world a better place than I found it, I shall compile some of the best writing advice I’ve received over the years.

Keep a pen and notebook by your bedside

Some of my best ideas strike me when I’m half asleep. Some others show themselves in dreams. If I don’t write force myself awake and write them down immediately, they’re gone by the morning and all I have left is a sense of loss. It was my late grandfather—also an author, albeit of non-fiction—who passed on this bit of wisdom to me, that never go to sleep without pen and paper at hand. Doing so has sparked many a new idea or an inspired twist in an ongoing piece of work.

Keep an ideas notebook

I started doing this pretty late in life and even though I’ve rarely flipped through it and thought, “Ah, that’s what I’m going to write about next,” it feels pretty damn good to flip through it anyway. I’ve read about writers keeping character notebooks and quotes and anything else that inspires them. Oh, and if you feel that carting a notebook is so 2000s, do try Evernote for a cloud-based note-taking app that will work across your devices.

Have a writing schedule

You innate writing skill might shine so bright it could solve the planet’s energy crisis, but you’re not going to do much good with it if you let it get rusty. Risk not working those writing muscles and they are going to wither and fall off sooner or later. It’s like practising a sport or a musical instrument. One could go on with the similes, but I guess you get the drift. It doesn’t matter if you spew crap sometimes, just don’t give up.

Recent research suggests that the best time to write is the morning, but if it doesn’t work for you, don’t sweat it. The important thing is to have a routine, as these famous authors will tell you.

Give yourself little writing retreats

I’ve done some of my best work in pyjamas, without having bothered to get out of bed. But I’ve also been extremely productive while treating myself to a coffee at the neighbourhood cafe. It’s true that there’s nothing as comfortable as working at home (or whatever your usual writing haunt is), but a temporary retreat—say, to a park or a coffee shop; I’ve even worked at a bus stop—can work wonders, especially if one is blocked. A change of scene can force one to think differently. Sometimes, moving out of the house for a short period helps me focus better—since there’s nothing I can do about the overflowing laundry basket or worry about answering the door, I might as well devote all my brain power to my story.

Don’t try too hard

The “don’t try too hard” and “just be yourself” refrains can sometimes feel the most patronizing and useless bits of advice you can get, but there’s hidden treasure in there, believe me. I was told this repeatedly by someone who first made me believe that I could be a writer and it was many years before I finally understood what it meant. You are not J.K. Rowling or Stephen King or Val McDermid or Shobha De or Khushwant Singh or whoever else you might worship. You are you, and that you is not going to pop out till you relax. That, of course, doesn’t mean one can go take a nap while the next book writes itself. You still have to work your behind off.

In other words, work hard but don’t try too hard. Yes, this writing thing is complicated, but you know you can do it, you want to.

~PD

Week #11: Out of my comfort zone

Working on my first non-fantasy novel is turning out to be an intriguing experience. There are no ethereal spirits, no special powers, no alternate universes and no magic in this story. It’s both fun and challenging, but the question is, how much different is it compared to writing fantasy?

When it comes to fantasy, the best part—and sometimes the most frustrating—is the scope to make so much up of the universe one is writing about. The challenge, of course, lies in making one’s fictional universe believable in the context of the story. In other words, inventing a convenient superpower just to get one’s protagonists out of a sticky situation is Cheating (capitalization intentional). So, if trees talk or if the sun rises at night, there’d better be a reason for that.

Of course, what’s fantasy without the fantastic, right? Magic and superpowers and other such fantastical stuff, that is. Magic needn’t necessarily be of the witches and wizards bent over boiling cauldrons sort, or superpowers of the saving the world variety. The point is, speculative fiction affords one the luxury of exploring in weird and wonderful ways, whether it’s a wormhole into the future, the ability to smell colour (all right, that is not a superpower, but a real condition called synaesthesia) or understand the language of dogs.

And then there’s the flexibility in your cast of characters, that people don’t necessarily have to be human. The TV series Doctor Who is a great example of how sci-fi/fantasy can broaden the scope of “people”. The eponymous Doctor isn’t even human—though it probably helps that he looks and acts (well, most of the time) like a regular Homo sapiens. Ogres, dragons, fairies, unicorns, talking animals, animated objects (remember the Luggage, anyone?)… suddenly humans seem a tad mundane.

Thus, when you think about the fact that the laws of physics, among other things, are already decided for you if you dabble in “regular” fiction, it seems a bit… yawn, right? What, no sparkly wands, no self-navigating suitcases, no sapient vegetation? Hmm…

Depending on whether you’re a spec-fic or non-spec-fic writer, you’d say that that is harder or easier respectively to work with the world as we know it. But I was surprised to find—brace for anti-climax—it is neither; it really makes no difference.

What any story really comes down to is a setting, a bunch of characters and whatever sticky situation you’ve plotted to throw them into. And subsequently how they get out of it. The constraints of your universe—whether real or imagined—still remain. Similiarly, your characters may be blessed with spectacular powers or have three eyes, but if you haven’t figured them out, they are not going to help you write them.

Having said that, I’ve rediscovered myself as a writer having taken on a non-fantasy project. Yes, I’m having fun writing it, but I’m also straining at the leash, wanting to get back to my made-up worlds where my protagonist can make a fireball if she feels like.

[Confession: Yes, I've lifted the title of this post from the autobiography of one of my sporting heroes.]

~PD

Week #10: Telling tales

A few days back I was asked by someone how I make up stories. It was funny because the asker was an artist and sculpture himself, and obviously has a creative process that is as alien to me as mine is to him. I didn’t quite know how to answer him, so I said, “I just make it up as I go along.”

That is is partly the truth, but it got me thinking.

Making up a story can be complicated even when you’ve got a cracker of an idea simmering in your head. I know a lot of writers who have very structured processes—some make chapter outlines, others have cue cards and flash cards, and recently I came across this nine-box method for plotting your book that I’m dying to try out (even though I know it won’t work for me). Many writers start from page/chapter 1 and write sequentially to the end.

The scatterbrain method

My preferred way of writing is to start with a triggering event, not necessarily the beginning of the book, and then work around it. I find this works for me because this event or idea is what I’m most enthused about and a collection adrenaline-fuelled fits of writing usually produces satisfying results. In the Shadow in Eternity/Maya books, I worked by writing the major twists and triggers first and then filling in the bits in between. In fact, I wrote the ending to all three books a long time before I’d finished the rest.

The major disadvantage of this “scatterbrain method” is that I often feel my beginnings are weak. This is the case in There’s a Ghost in My PC. There is a way around it—and that is to pretend the book is a short story and you need a hook in the first sentence. (This isn’t rocket science, but it clearly didn’t work in Ghost…!).

The other disadvantage of my method of writing is that I hit roadblocks very easily since the plot isn’t mapped from one step to another. This is what’s happening in Amazing Grace, a sequel to the Shadow…/Maya series, mainly because it’s been a work in progress for almost five years now. (And yes, I have the ending written out already.)

Technically speaking, “making it up as you go along” may be the main trick to writing fiction, but it’s easier said than done. The constraints of your world (especially in fantasy) and your characters can be limiting. For istance, if a group of gundas attacks Maya from the Shadow…/Maya books, she should be able to fight them off, but Sahil from the under-construction Slightly Burnt will have to run for his life.

Ultimately, it’s all really about putting your head down and doing it. And switching off the Internet works wonders for my productivity at least.

~PD

Week #9: Just finished reading…

Even though I’m actually on a writing break, I’m managing to get in a good deal of reading as well. Last week I got through a couple of young adult novels: Paper Towns by John Green and Gone by Christine Kersey.

John Green is likely to be familiar to readers of YA. His novel The Fault in Our Stars has recently been made into a movie and he’s also famous for his VlogBrothers project with brother Hank. If you haven’t heard of it, I’d strongly suggest checking it out. (Go here to find out how it started.)

The first John Green novel I read was Will Grayson, Will Grayson, co-authored with David Levithan, which I quite enjoyed, and was one of the reasons I fell upon Paper Towns. It’s a story of unrequited love, of Quentin Jacobsen who secretly “admires” the unattainable Margo Roth Spiegelman. Then, one day, after a night of unbelievable (literally!) adventures, Margo disappears and Quentin embarks on a quest to find her.

There’s some wonderful writing, a cast of entertaining characters and some intriguing plotting. This isn’t intended to be a review, so I won’t go on and on, but it had me turning pages compulsively even though there were things I didn’t like. For one, it felt like I’d met some of the characters before—Jane from Will Grayson… and Margo seemed uncannily similar in many ways; Green’s Will in Will Grayson… and Quentin again seemed somewhat same-y. Also, I wasn’t a great fan of the philosophizing when Quentin was attempting to read Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself”. There was some of this in Will Grayson… as well. I am waiting to read some more of John Green’s work to find out if this is a common thing in his work.

Christine Kersey’s Gone is part one of the Parallel Trilogy. It was offered free and the premise sounded interesting. Morgan Campbell is a sixteen-year-old who decides to run away from home. She runs a bit further than she intended and ends up in a parallel dystopian universe where the (US) government is forcing a Federally-Assisted Thinning (FAT) programme down their citizens’ throats, which they must pay for themselves. In this new universe, Morgan’s family has had to sell their house and relocate after her father was dragged off to FAT rehab, and everyone is obsessed with sport and health foods.

As a concept, it is quite brilliant and put me in mind of Scott Westerfeld’s Uglies, about a world obsessed with good looks. It’s also extremely relevant given the consuming preoccupation with being thin in our present world. However, the writing leaves quite a lot of room for improvement. Right off, the opening—Morgan’s conversation with her mother after which she decides to run away—left me cold. It was completely unconvincing and the exchange between them (and some other conversations later on) stilted. The style of writing is very passive and cringingly clunky at times; that thing they always tell writers, “show, don’t tell”—Gone has done it all by telling rather than showing. Yet the plot was interesting enough for me to read through and think about getting the rest.

~PD

Week #8: Writing broken

When you want to write and there’s an almost-four-year-old underfoot, there are a number of things you could do:

tuck it under one arm and deposit it in the next room; it might come back, so you’ll need to shut the door;
turn on the TV to distract it;
lock your door;
leave the house.

The trouble is:

first, they’re extremely wriggly and can be difficult to tuck under the arm; second, they come back and are now able to open doors; even if you lock it, they can pound very loudly and scream your name, so the neighbours start wondering if you’ve fallen in the bathroom and hit your head;
they come back and pound on the door and call your name loudly (they have very loud voices);
they pound on the door and call your name;
you get heartbroken at the thought of them going around the house pounding on doors and calling your name.

What I’m trying to say is, my two novels in progress, which I’m supposed to finish on this current writing break, are getting nowhere. Other small-child-related obstacles to overcome include:

my promotion to the coveted position of new best friend (this is usually temporary and I’m likely to get booted down in a day or two);
an incredible fascination with my laptop whenever I sit down to work, including its low-tech (read non-touch-responsive) screen;
the compulsory requirement to answer the question “What are you doing?” every ten seconds.

A couple of days ago, I tweeted:



… which, of course, is not an option. Thus, I stepped out to spend a couple of hours in a cafe to catch up on my writing. Instead, I find myself still distracted by aforementioned almost-four-year-old.

The thing is, even though it sounds like I’m moaning, it’s really highly entertaining being around a tiny human—even for someone like me who’s wary of little kids. Here’s what I’ve learnt in the past two days:

the names of all the characters in Cars;
the names of various characters in… sorry to say… Barbie;
how to make almost anything out of Lego as long as your imagination allows;
cake is only cake if it’s chocolate cake (this is where I know we share some genes).

There’s no way to say if I’ll really finish either of my novels in the next two weeks, but I’m getting the feeling I should whip out a notebook and start taking notes, for there is a live new story unfolding before my eyes. At the risk of running afoul of the sibling, of course…

~PD

Week 7: New horizons and some ongoing ones

This week 7 post is just a bit late, but for a change it’s not because of the usual excuse (in other words, laziness). In fact, I’ve been very busy with all things reading and writing—a publishing conference and a workshop on literary innovation in children’s writing.

Digital future

I was an accidental audience member at the Globalocal 2014 publishing conference on 13 and 14 February in Delhi, when I was asked to be a rapporteur. It started out as just a job, but ended up being a very interesting couple of days, where a range of professionals from publishing and other allied fields talked about how technology is changing the way we look at content, how we produce it and how we interact with it, consume it.

What was interesting was the CEOs’ Roundtable, where they spoke of the “disruptive influence” of technology on readers and reading. This is not disruptive in the destructive sense; rather, a disruption in the form of a change in established habits and norms. It doesn’t need to be spelt out—how we read is changing and if the publishing industry doesn’t want to be left behind, it needs to evolve and do it fast. My report on the CEOs’ Roundtable on the Frankfurt Book Fair blog is here.

The second day’s roundtable was on STM (scientific, technical and mathematical publishing), where there was a discussion on the changing nature of copyright. The other interesting concept I was introduced to was open access, a way to make publicly funded research available to the public (well, specifically scholars and researchers, who might be able to make use of such information. Emma House of the Publishers’ Association, UK, had spoken in brief about open access at the CEOs’ Roundtable, and this was further discussed at the STM one. My report for the Frankfurt Book fair blog can be read here.

Collaborations in children’s literature

This week I’ve been attending a workshop organized by Amanda Morrison and Robin Kershew of RKPix, funded by the Australia India Council, talking about the “digital disruption” and looking at new ways to collaborate and innovate on children’s content. Cross-cultural exchanges could play a major role is such collaborative projects. Participants include Ken Spillman, Priya Kuriyan and Chris Nixon. The workshop is still going on, so details will come along later.

Speaking of cross-border collaboration, especially between Indian and Australia, this is a good time to briefly mention an exciting project I’m part of: an anthology of young adult feminist speculative fiction, where ten Indian and ten Australian authors come together to showcase their ideas of a future world. I’m one of the co-editors of the volume along with Kirsty Murray, and Anita Roy is an associate editor. The book is titled Eat the Sky, Drink the Ocean, and is slated for publication in November 2014 (the Indian edition by Young Zubaan) and April 2015 (the Aussie edition by Allen & Unwin). More later!

~PD

Sims 3: The madness continues

This is an unscheduled post—and it’s all Marie’s fault who put temptation my way and caused me to stir up my Sims 3 legacy family. So, guess what happened within ten minutes of loading the game? I had twins, of course. It resulted in a seven-people household, with one toddler and two babies (which soon became three toddlers). Long story short, I’m quite impressed with my computer for handling it with nary a hitch; can’t say the same for myself.

The burdens of the next generation (generation four) lie on the shoulders of Myka Zara and the twins, Para and Laila. I’m not sure yet who the heir is. My sympathies lie with Para, because of her unfortunate rhyming name, but has she picked up the insanity—all by chance, I promise. Now a teenager, Para also has the virtuoso trait, and is already close to maxing out her guitar skills. Older sister Myka and sane twin Laila are solid citizens, if a bit boring.

After the twins had grown into children, a spate of deaths in the household left poor Eli Zara (the daddy) reeling—first his mothers kicked the bucket; then his poor wife was electrocuted while trying some DIY dishwasher repair *innocent expression here*—and alone to raise his three daughters. Anyhow, he managed not to fall apart, mostly ignored the kids, and is currently involved in a fling with one of his married friends.

Meanwhile, three working generations of the Zara family have managed to stash a good amount of money in the coffers. Perhaps it time to build them a new house—you’ll be surprised how much happiness simoleons can buy my Sims.

~PD

Week #6: Five books I want to write

Ten years back, all I knew was that I wanted to write a book some day. The terms “young adult” and “fantasy” never crossed my mind. Who knows what I’ll have written (or not) ten years from now, but it’s fun thinking about what I’d want to have written. Would you call that a sense of purpose or wishful thinking?

High fantasy epic

In 2013, I was contacted by a TV production company and asked if I’d be willing to write a story for a proposed series. I got all excited, but they didn’t like what I came up with. However, I later realized I was left with a fairly detailed outline of an epic fantasy novel and a yearning to maybe write it some day. It’s got all the usual ingredients: magic and other-wordly creatures, fantastic lands and epic journeys, good and evil. Now, if only I could get off my butt…

School story

I’ve been enthused about writing a school story since my teens and even have a few aborted attempts lying around amidst old backups. This includes a protected file whose password I’ve lost, which, in hindsight is a good thing, for I’m fairly certain I don’t want to be faced with my cringe-worthy adolescent work. The good news is, this is one wish that may by fulfilled in the nearish future. I’m currently in talks with a publisher to collaborate on a multi-author school series. If and when things progress, rest assured I’ll be screaming it from the rooftops.

Spin-off of the Shadow series

I’m plodding on with Shadow IV: Amazing Grace since I feel there were some loose ends in The Timeless Land and I have a lot of unused material and also because I promised a few people—you know who you are. On top of that, I’m considering setting up events in such a way that there could be potential for a spin-off series, set in 2025 or thereabouts (which falls into place very nicely schedule-wise, considering my progress with Amazing Grace!). The protagonists are (most likely) going to be a couple of teenagers, with the Shadow in Eternity/Maya characters forming a supporting cast. Tamora Pierce has done this wonderfully in her Tortal books, though her’s are massive footsteps to follow in.

A non-fantasy young adult novel

Another wish that might just come true in 2014. I’m presently working on a novel provisionally titled Slightly Burnt, where a sixteen-year-old girl finds out something about her best friend that is going to change their lives. Or maybe it won’t. We’ll just have to wait and see.

A romance

I’m fairly certain I’d be terrible at writing a romance novel, but I’ve been challenged to write one this year. That said, I’m not sure yet if it’ll be for public consumption, but if I do manage it, I’m going to buy myself the largest bar of chocolate I can lay my hands on.

~PD