Payal Dhar's Blog: Writer's Log, page 16

Week #5: Falling in love between the pages

I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve fallen in love. Fortunately, there haven’t been a proportionate number of heartbreaks since an overwhelming majority of these have been fictional characters. I spent the last weekend revisiting my fondness for one such memorable individual from someone else’s imagination—Sergeant Wield from Reginald Hill’s Dalziel and Pascoe series.

Traditionally, fictional heroes are supposed to be tall, dark and handsome. At six-foot-four, with a physique to die for and a head of dark hair, Detective Sergeant Edgar Wield seems to meet most of the requirements. His is a visage once seen and never forgotten:

Silhouetted against the golden autumn sunlight, his face deep shadowed, he had the grace and proportions to model for the statue of a Greek athlete. Then he moved forward and his features took on detail, and you remembered that if this were a statue, it was one whose face someone had taken a hammer to.

(Dialogues of the Dead)

Each individual feature was only slightly battered, or bent, or scarred… but combined in one face they produced an effect so startling that Pascoe who met him almost daily was still amazed when he entered his room.

(A Pinch of Snuff)

If you haven’t already got the point, no worries—Reginald Hill hammers home the message a few more times than, in my opinion, is needed. Wield’s looks have been compared to craggy rock faces and ruined architecture, his expression to Chinese encyclopaedias and Swiss neutrality. Despite his late entry, Wield is shown to seal his rightful place in the Holy Trinity with Superintendent Dalziel and Inspector Pascoe very quickly. His superbly organized mind—leading Dalziel to comment his brain should be “picked in strong ale and sold to IBM”—gentle demeanour and sensitivity make him an exceptional detective. Detective Constable Shirley Novello once summed him up perfectly:

And Wield was… Wield. Unreadable as a Chinese encyclopaedia, but containing everything a cop needed to know. There were stories about his private life which might have washed away another man’s career. But against that unyeilding crag, they broke and vanished back into the sea.

Word was that when Dalziel spoke, you obeyed; when Pascoe spoke, you listened; when Wield spoke, you took notes.

(On Beulah Height)

Novello, incidentally, was also the only one who found beauty in his face:

His eyes, she noticed for the first time, were rather beautiful, circles of Mediterranean blue round a dark grey centre set on a field of pristine white with not a red vein to be seen. It was like finding jewels in a ruin.

(On Beulah Height)

Where his alarming looks might make him unforgettable, there’s no doubting his substance as a human being. And that, despite preferring to stay in the background, he is clearly one of the sharpest minds in the team. He is also an electronic whizz, which gives him quite an advantage in those early days of computerization. Which begs the question, why does Wieldy remain a perpetual sergeant?

The indications are that Wield joined the police to deny his sexuality, his decision hastened by the fact that when he was a teenage draughtsman’s apprentice, his boss attempted to take advantage of his confusion. Draughtsmanship’s loss ended up being the Mid-Yorkshire Constabulary CID’s gain. (The time when Wield must have joined the force, being gay would have got him kicked out of his job.) And to stem any speculations on his private life, he took to living his life in “compartments” for many years till he finally accepted what couldn’t be avoided.

Though not officially “out”, at some point in the series Wield made a conscious decision not to deny his sexual orientation. However, in an attempt to not tempt fate, he made an equally conscious decision not to pursue further glory in his career. And in boss Andy Dalziel he found an ally who—if not in obvious style—had always had his back, even when Wield wasn’t aware of it.

Instead of beating about the bush, Wield can be summed up really simply: he is the quintessential good man. It isn’t like he hasn’t got his faults, though. For example, he tampered with evidence at least once to save the skin of someone whom professed an inexplicable liking for and also made some bad decisions. But, when all is said and done, Wield is an amazingly easy character to like. This little exchange with a lab assistant leaves no doubts as to why that is so:

He watched as a radiantly beautiful young woman… picked up a tiny monkey which threw its arms around her neck in a baby-like need for reassurance. Expertly, she disengaged it… and plunged a hypodermic needle into the base of its spine.

“Ouch,” said Wield. “Doesn’t that hurt?”

“Done properly, the animal hardly feels it,” she reassured him…

“No, Jane,” he said amiably, “it was you I meant.”

(The Wood Beyond)

Ironically, my interest in Wield was rekindled after watching the TV adaptation of the series. Actor David Royle does a sublime job of portraying the taciturn sergeant. And while he’s not the handsomest person on the show, he’s far from ugly.

Beauty, they say, lies in the eye of the beholder.

~PD

Week #4: Living the dream? Er, not quite!

Since I’ve wanted to be a writer since the age of eight or so, in some sense you could say I’m living my dream. But is it really anything like I’d imagined? Ha! Truth be told, I had some preconceived notions about my cloud cuckoo land, though, in my defence, I had no idea why they were absurd. Here’s what I’d imagined life as a writer would be like:

Living the life of a writer—whatever that means—was supposed to be dead easy. I had an idyllic fantasy of a desk by the window where I’d sit hammering out stories on my typewriter (yes, I’m that old) and go for long walks in the evening. But the reality is that I neither have a desk, nor a window. If I attempted to go for a long walk, I’d be too stressed out from trying not to get run over to write afterwards. Anyhow, after cleaning up, putting the washing out, paying bills and buying food—apart from meeting deadlines, that is—I really don’t care about either desk or window. I’m just happy if there’s domestic harmony, chocolate in the house, and an idea germinating in my head.
And it was going to be fun. In other words, I’d be making a living writing fiction. I still hope for that to happen, though it’s highly unlikely. There are many reasons: I write the “wrong” stuff in the “wrong” way, and don’t hang around in the right crowd. Books for children and young adults aren’t very sought-after in Indian publishing at the moment, resulting in very little media support as well as very little money. Also, I don’t believe I’ve written anything good enough.
I’d be famous… ish. Don’t get me wrong, I never wanted to be mobbed at the market or airport. Just every now and them have someone come up to say they’ve read my book. They wouldn’t even have to say they liked it! The only time I’ve been recognized in a public space was at Bookaroo (not sure it counts since it’s a children’s literature festival), and that too when three different people came up and asked if I was [the name of my sibling]’s sister. Apparently, the shared DNA is obvious and she’s on Facebook. Hmmph.
There’d be a house on a hill, though I’m not sure what this has to do with writing. Anyway, the aforementioned window was supposed to look out on to the hillside. It’s not a very practical fantasy, because, though I love the mountains, I’m pretty much a city person, lover of broadband and online shopping, and not too fond of creepy crawlies.
My head would be bursting full of great ideas for stories, it would be like living in a dozen books at the same time. But if I’d known how difficult it is to come up with an idea, convert it into a story with characters and logic, and have everything make sense in the end, I might have studied to be an accountant. Bazinga! I jest! As a kid I’d imagined that if you’re a writer, the ideas drop into your head automatically and keep coming as fast as you can put them down on paper. I stand corrected.

However—and this is a big HOWEVER—I’m not complaining. I work with books and words, and I don’t have to get up in the morning to go to an office. I wouldn’t change it for the world.

~PD

Where’s the cake?!

Yes, it’s time to bring out the cake (chocolate only, please) and blow out the candles. Maybe since I’m turning 1048 years old, it really shouldn’t matter any more, but until all my brain cells decay, I don’t think I’ll stop getting excited about my birthday. Which is mostly because I love presents.

The 37-year-old me had a pretty okay year. I managed 3 out of my 5 resolutions, that is:

Write more: The first half of the year was dry writing-wise, but the last three months rocked, so I give myself half a point.
Do more craft: Yes.
Redesign Writeside.net: Nope.
Return to full-time freelancing: Yes; getting laid off helped.
Stay fit: Yes for the summer months when I was swimming; no for the rest of the year.

So what does the 38-year-old me want to do?

Write more: Have at least one book done with in 2014. (Also, if I don’t finish Amazing Grace I think Marie might hunt me down and pull my nails out slowly.)
Do more webby work: Finishing that web development course would be a start.
Go back to swimming in the summer.
Sell some crochet: Plans are afoot, so let’s see…
Relearn to drive: Okay, this is embarrassing, but my licence is about to expire and I haven’t used it in, I think, 19.5 years
Visit some place interesting: Self-explanatory.
Get better at Urdu: Read more and work on vocabulary.
Write more spec-fic.

~PD

Yes, it’s time to bring out the cake (chocolate only, ple...

Yes, it’s time to bring out the cake (chocolate only, please) and blow out the candles. Maybe since I’m turning 1048 years old, it really shouldn’t matter any more, but until all my brain cells decay, I don’t think I’ll stop getting excited about my birthday. Which is mostly because I love presents.

The 37-year-old me had a pretty okay year. I managed 3 out of my 5 resolutions, that is:

Write more: The first half of the year was dry writing-wise, but the last three months rocked, so I give myself half a point.
Do more craft: Yes.
Redesign Writeside.net: Nope.
Return to full-time freelancing: Yes; getting laid off helped.
Stay fit: Yes for the summer months when I was swimming; no for the rest of the year.

So what does the 38-year-old me want to do?

Write more: Have at least one book done with in 2014. (Also, if I don’t finish Amazing Grace I think Marie might hunt me down and pull my nails out slowly.)
Do more webby work: Finishing that web development course would be a start.
Go back to swimming in the summer.
Sell some crochet: Plans are afoot, so let’s see…
Relearn to drive: Okay, this is embarrassing, but my licence is about to expire and I haven’t used it in, I think, 19.5 years
Visit some place interesting: Self-explanatory.
Get better at Urdu: Read more and work on vocabulary.
Write more spec-fic.

Week #3: The birthday list

It’s my birthday week so and I usually use that as an excuse to buy myself some books. Here are the books I’m going to buy/have bought me this year:

Already waiting in my shelf:

The Blind Goddess (Anne Holt): This is the first of the series starring the Norwegian detective Hanne Wilhelmsen. Last year I read 1222, the first to be translated to English—oddly, the eighth in the series—and was quite taken with the paraplegic, acerbic Wilhelmsen. When Kobo had a sale recently, I decided to nab The Blind Goddess, the book that launches Wilhelmsen’s fictional career. Needless to say, I quite enjoyed 1222 and look forward to finding out how Wilhelmsen career developed, how she lost the use of her legs, among other things. Scandinavian crime fiction has been elbowing for space in recent years, some of it good, some quite ordinary. It’s too early to make up my mind about Holt, but I can say this with certainty: Hanne Wilhelmsen is certainly different and definitely interesting. I won’t give anything away.

The Ring of Solomon (Jonathan Stroud): I had no idea there was a fourth Bartimaeus book, so when I saw this at Blossom, Bangalore, I literally fell on it. Anyhow, it’s next on my list to read and I can’t wait to have the footnoting djinni back in my life.

Ocean at the End of the Lane (Neil Gaiman): I don’t believe you can go wrong with Neil Gaiman, but I was also fascinated by the title of this book. Amazon describes it as “a fable that reshapes modern fantasy” and I’m willing to bet it is going to be a fun read.

The Screaming Staircase (Jonathan Stroud): Yep, another Jonathan Stroud, the first of a new series about a ghost-hunting agency called Lockwood & Co. If Stroud can pull off the dry humour of the Bartimaeus books this could be the start of something just as engaging.

The ones that’ll have to wait

Cross and Burn (Val McDermid): I’ve railed and ranted about the ups and downs of the Carol Jordan/Tony Hill relationship, but the events at the end of the previous book, Retribution, left me flabbergasted. What happens next? That’s the big question. Unfortunately, the book isn’t available in India yet (unless one is willing to pay four figures to have it imported or pay a ridiculous amount for an ebook). I don’t like it, but I’ll have to wait.

Saints of the Shadow Bible (Ian Rankin): “Rebus and Malcolm Fox go head-to-head when a 30-year-old murder investigation resurfaces.” Need I say more? Once again, I’ll have to cool my heels for a paperback edition to be available in India—or a reasonably priced e-edtion.

~PD

Week #2: Inspector Rebus is back!

(Skip the rambling and go straight to the review of Standing in Another Man’s Grave by Ian Rankin.)

Confession time—I am a Rebus-head. Enough of one, in fact, to have orchestrated a trip to Edinburgh just so I could put a face to some of the locations I’d read in Ian Rankin’s series about John Rebus. So, of course, it was with a sense of an era coming to a close that I read Exit Music many years ago, the novel in which Detective Inspector John Rebus was finally forced to hang up his boots.

But as Alison Flood put in the Guardian‘s review of Standing in Another Man’s Grave, “Did anyone really believe Ian Rankin was going to stop writing about John Rebus, the cantankerous, alcoholic detective…? In retrospect, we should all have known better.”

Indeed, we should have, for Rebus returned, large as life, in 2012, much to the joy of readers of crime fiction. Without further ado, head over to my review—or better still, grab yourself a copy.

Also, a hello to my friend Gargi, who has agreed to do the 52 Weeks blog project with me. Don’t forget to check out her posts. She has plenty to say about reading and writing and the adventures therein.

EDIT: Marie is another friend who’s been armtwisted into agreed to come on board for the 52 Weeks blogging thing. She’s written about Katy Perry too. *nod*

~PD

Week #1: Ranjit Lal

Do you remember being in school and writing one of those “My favourite author” type of essays? Well—fair warning—this is one such post.

Last year, I finally had the nerve to go up and say hello to one of my favourite Indian authors writing for young people, Ranjit Lal. You’d be hard pressed to find him hobnobbing with the who’s who of the publishing world—though I believe he fully belongs there, more so than various others who insist on elbowing in—which is probably one of the reasons that his work doesn’t get as much of a fuss made of as it should. He says that his books are “for everyone from age 10 to 100”, and he’s certainly quite prolific, but I particularly love his YA stuff.

Ranjit Lal does people particularly well. The one thing you’re certain to take away from any of his works is how well the characters are drawn. It is notable that he writes girls and boys equally well, and tends to shy away from gender stereotyping. Overall, he’s an adroit narrator and writes the kind of books that make you think even after you’ve turned the last page. Here’s an excerpt from something I wrote for the now defunct Books & More magazine nearly two years ago:

Ranjit Lal’s Faces in the Water (Puffin, 2010) tackles an ubiquitous and rampant social evil—female infanticide. Fifteen-year-old Gurmi is your regular rich spoilt brat, belonging to the affluent Diwanchand family that boasts of having only sons. When he accidentally ventures into forbidden territory, he meets the ghost-sisters he never had and finally understands why there are no girls in his family. Lal’s 2007 novel The Battle for No.19 (Puffin) is set in the aftermath of Indira Gandhi’s assassination in 1984, when a group of schoolgirls takes refuge from a violent mob. This gripping story brings to the fore how violence, so commonplace in today’s world, affects the lives of young people and the choices they must make.

But perhaps no other Indian novel pushes the boundaries as much as… Smitten [2012, Young Zubaan], the story of a young girl being sexually abused by her stepfather. Despite the disturbing subject, it is also combines a rather sweet side story of two teenagers falling in love.

Sounds like heavy stuff, but the writing is clean, pacy, non-didactic and very believable. Another of my favourites is Taklu and Shroom (Harper, 2012), which narrates an unlikely friendship between the angry, grieving seventeen-year-old Gaurav, whose dog has been brutally gunned down by the prime-minister’s security people, and a cancer survivor Rukmini, all of twelve, and living in her own world where she’s an intrepid secret agent.

Finally, I have two Ranjit Lal novels waiting in my bookshelf: The Deadly Royal Recipe (Duckbill, 2012) and autographed copy of Black Limericks (IndiaInk, 2011). Of course, these are just a few of the two dozen and counting that he’s written. Someday I’ll get through them all—and do a few reviews.

~PD

2014 Special: 52 weeks of reading and writing

I’m not quite sure why we get all excited about the new year. Apart from the fact that you have to get used to writing 2014 instead of 2013, nothing’s changed, has it? I, for one, am doing the same thing I was doing at this time yesterday—drinking a cup of tea, sitting at my computer, checking to see if anyone’s online to chat (no, but that may be because it’s 2:09 a.m.), and worrying about where my next work assignment will come from.

But one thing the new year does do is give us a convenient excuse to wipe the slate clean, set the counter back to zero, shake out some clean sheets, dust off the cobwebs… well, you know. In my case, I’m taking advantage of the newness of the calender to inject some life into the flagging spirits of my blog. So here’s the plan for 2014: Writer’s Log promises to deliver “52 Weeks of Reading & Writing”.

In short, each week in 2014 will see a new post about books, whether the making of them or the consuming of them. I’m hoping there will be reviews and discussions about the stuff people are reading (and writing), though mostly it’ll be me rambling on about all the booky things I’ve been up to. See, I’ve even got a button:

Every marathon begins with one step; sometimes you trip over your own feet and end up flat on your face, but let’s think happy thoughts, shall we? In fact, let’s go so far as to get a bit inspired:

And so, onwards along a path of wisdom, with a hearty tread, a hearty confidence! However you may be, be your own source of experience! Throw off your discontent about your nature; forgive yourself your own self, for you have in it a ladder with a hundred rungs, on which you can climb to knowledge.
(Friedrich Nietzsche, Human, All Too Human)

Hmm, not a bad thought to start the year with. And there I go, caught up in the spirit of the season, so Happy New Year! And don’t forget to check back for Week #1 in a couple of days.

~PD

A few good reasons

So much to do, so little time. Well, it always feels good to know my blog is being ignored for a good reason, but the truth of the matter is, I’ve always been terrible at managing time. How, despite that, I end up managing a freelance career is a mystery. Anyhow, here’s my list of excuses this time.

Work

For obvious reasons — including, but not restricted to, various people (who will eventually contribute to my bank account) chasing me with murderous objects — I can’t go into details. But in short, there are few editing projects unfolding around me right now. One of them is a very exciting across-the-seas collaboration, about which I hope to write in detail early in 2014.

Play

Thanks to a gift from Marie, I have a new game to play: Bastion. It’s an action RPG, with a quirky turn of phrase, stunning art work, and some interesting world building. I was supposed to return to Hitman: Absolution and Mass Effect 3, but I have a feeling that’s not going to happen this year.

And when the twain meet…

Well, I’ve never been in a phase when I’m working on two books at the same time, and certainly not two that are so completely different from each other. More in detail later, but…

Amazing Grace: is supposed to be part four of the Shadow in Eternity/Maya trilogy. It takes place four years after the events in the Timeless Land —when our young Defenders fear that the Warriors may be regrouping—and attempts to tie up some loose ends. My publishers haven’t shown an interest in this yet, so Amazing Grace will be an ebook.
Slightly Burnt is the working title of a young adult novel that will be my first that has no fantasy element in it—so, no magic, no new worlds, no special powers, no supernatural creatures. It is the story of a sixteen-year-old girl who finds out that her best friend is keeping a big secret from the world.
There wasn’t supposed to be a number three when I started this list, but I should add, the Shadow in Eternity series will soon be available in ebook format.

Right, then, back to work *cough* I go!

~PD

Back-up bloopers

One of the plusses of having been a tech writer for nearly a decade and a half is that I get to do my I-told-you-so face whenever other people have computer-related emergencies thanks to their own carelessness. But the experience of a colleague last week was a sort of a wake-up call: even when we are meticulous about keeping our documents and other information backed up, there are a few common mistakes we may all be inadvertently guilty of.

Having a single back up

You’re not really properly backed up unless you have adequate redundancy. In computing terms, it basically means having a Plan B. Computing gurus recommend having at least two—three is even better—different kinds of back up. For example, if your primary strategy is to copy your files and other stuff on to an external hard disk, it is imperative you have a secondary fall-back option, such as DVDs, pen drive, memory card or even a cloud-based back up. In fact, a cloud back up is a really good idea because it is an off-site back up—literally, if your house catches fire, is robbed, falls down, or anything else happens that restricts your access, you have a back up at a different location. In fact, one that can be accessed from anywhere.

Not verifying back ups

So, you’ve copied your files and other odds and ends to an external HD, made a secondary back up to DVDs, and are generally feeling very pleased with yourself. Good, you should be. But wait… did you verify your back ups? In plain English, this means to check and see if your files have been properly copied to the back-up location(s) and if they can be accessed from there. If possible, verify your back ups with a different computer.

Incorrectly uploading files to the cloud

This is, in fact, what happened to my colleague—she thought her files were safe at an online location, but when her computer had to be reformatted, she realised that they had actually not been properly uploaded. If you’re using a desktop application, like the one that comes with Dropbox, make sure the synchronisation is complete every time you add or edit a file.

Accidentally deleting your back up

No, seriously, no laughing. This really happened to a friend, who accidentally deleted GBs worth of data while copying something else. (Fortunately, much of it was retrieved using un-delete software.) In any case, it is very easy for an over-zealous clean-up operation to go wrong, so handle your back-up media with extra care!

~PD