Category Archives: Writing
That Novel I’ve Been Working On . . .
Aside from not being a dog, or having a drinking problem, or being homies with a diabolical, talking baby, this is exactly what “working on my novel” has been like. At least for the last two years when all the research needed for the narrative is, in a sense, sorted. This is still a hilarious clip (note to my dad: this is how you use the word “hilarious,” not to randomly describe things like scuba diving, clothing, or hamburgers.) But it is less funny when I think about myself as Brian Griffin. Fortunately, I can’t sustain such introspective and deep thoughts while watching Family Guy for very long. In case it isn’t clear, this is a slightly late New Year’s Resolution Post. Yes, eleven days late. So what?
As I was saying . . .
At some point between my birthday and the end of the year, I make a perfectly plausible New Year’s resolution: to carve out some writing time and get that novel I’m working on finished. Then I write other detailed resolutions that expand and strengthen the initial resolution. I also throw in some I’m going to exercise and drink more smoothies.
Last year, I even attempted to do NaNoWriMo in November, which didn’t go quite as well as I’d hoped. In fact, it went in the opposite direction. If you’re wondering why my NaNo word count widget is still stuck in November, it isn’t the result of laziness; it’s because that’s the last time I even looked at my story, let alone touched it, and I mean that in a completely normal way.
While I would like to blame Kavya, my two year old daughter, for my lack of time, energy, motivation, inspiration, etc. I can’t. Nor can I blame my hectic work schedule. It’s not that hectic, or draining. The real issue really boils down to. Well, me. I am not looking at writing fiction as a job, and I probably should start doing that. There is no divine inspiration, or sage advice to gleam from writing books or magazines. The bottom line is that I have to write like it’s a job.
When I write freelance articles and essays, I know someone is going to pay me as soon as I finish it. Even when I grade papers or write up lesson plans/syllabi, I know at the end of the 4 month semester, I will be paid for my effort. Writing fiction is totally different. There is no guarantee of anything. Not of payment. Not of publication, or the time frame. As Victor Frankenstein says to Robert Walton in Letter IV of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein: “Unhappy man, do you share my madness?” Yep. I do, homeboy.
After my five days of NaNo and my pitiful November word count, I felt a bit bummed and even as I write this post, I still haven’t looked at my writing. But clearly, I wasn’t that distraught because it didn’t stop me from livin’ it up on a holiday to Hawai’i for Christmas.
So, rather than making a huge New Year’s Resolution post filled with lofty goals, this year I have exactly two writing related goals:
1) To get organized and start taking my writing seriously, instead of waffling about. That wasn’t really a goal, more an offhand inner thought that somehow made it to #1 on my resolutions.
2) I’m going to post a monthly word count in the sidebar, and try to gear myself up for NaNoWriMo. This is the year I finish my novel.
3) Read more. Maybe post some reviews on here of some of the books I’ve read.
I’ll end this post with another inspirational video by the best writing mentor anyone could hope to have:
Weekly Update For NanoWriMo 2011: Days 1-7
WEEK ONE : TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 1 – MONDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 2011
Weekly Word Count Goal: 1,644 x 7 = 11,508
Actual Weekly Word Count: 6,200
Total Words Written: 6,200/50,000
The Good: I am excited that my novel is finally taking shape and that I’m not constantly second-guessing the story, the characters, or the narrative structure of the entire thing. I am also very pleased with the progress and the fact that I am sitting down to write. So, I am at peace with the progress I am slowly making.
The Not So Good: My progress could obviously be better. I do need to stop dwelling on refining sentences and move forward with the plot. But most importantly, I really need to carve out time from my schedule because otherwise, everything else will take precedence. Even though, I’ve only hit 53% of the NaNoWriMo goal, it is a 53% boost from where my writing was at on October 31st. This coming week will be better. Wish me luck!
NanoWriMo 2011: Day 6
DAY SIX: SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 2011
Start Time: 2:30 pm
End Time: 3:00pm
Today”s Word-count: 17 (no, that isn’t a typo!)
Total Words Written: 4,200/50,000 (from Day One, Day Two, Day Three, Day Four and Day Five)
The Good: We got to Cape May in good time. The room is lovely as is the beach and the weather is nice. Kavya is thoroughly enjoying herself.
The Not So Good: I got so bloody knackered that I completely zonked out when we came into the room. I did sort of work on my writing for about half an hour, from 230pm to 3pm, but I got 17 words that I think mostly consisted of vowels and were refining sentences that were already there. So I’m definitely not pleased about my progress today.
Dialogue Makers: Attack of Short-Story Writers
When I first started my M.F.A. in fiction at California State University, Fresno, I had zero interest in Southern fiction. I had, of course, heard of Ernest Hemingway, and had to analyze two of what I had thought were plotless short-stories: “Hills Like White Elephants,” and “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place.” I was admittedly bored out of my head at the prospect of having to do it again in graduate school. But I was pleasantly surprised because the analysis this time wasn’t focused on the symbolism, or on understanding what the writer meant, not even on forcing the motif of light and dark or the abortion imagery. Instead, Steve Yarbrough, my creative writing professor and thesis advisor, focused the discussion on the mechanics of the short-story.
Dialogue is one of the most underrated skills for a fiction writer to study. It’s viewed almost as the exclusive territory of screenwriters. The stories that I enjoy reading (short-stories, novels, non-fiction) use a range of tools to tell their stories. There are beautiful sentences with lovely imagery and words that pop into your mouth and crackle (description); the plot is intriguing, and the dialogue is believable and the characters are deliciously complex. So, the stories of the authors mentioned above are not ones I read just out of entertainment, but the fact they are fantastic stories to really attempt to dissect how the writer’s achieved the effect they did.
NanoWriMo 2011: Day 5
DAY FIVE: SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 2011
Start Time: 9:30 pm
End Time: 11pm
Today”s Word-count: 2,000! ! !
Total Words Written: 4,200/50,000 (from Day One, Day Two, Day Three, and Day Four)
The Good: Not only did I get to hang out with Kavya during the day, but I put in a major dent into my story. While there was some dilly dallying with refining bits and pieces and stopping to add to the backstory, overall I am quite chuffed that a) I surpassed my daily goal and b) that it seems to be coalescing smoothly.
The Not So Good: This is not necessarily a negative yet, but I have a feeling I know what is going to happen tomorrow and the day after. So, starting on Sunday morning until Monday afternoon, we are going on a little family trip (just me, Sona, and Kavya) to a little seaside beach called Cape May, about a half hour from Atlantic City in New Jersey. We’ve brought our laptops, but I think it’s safe to assume bugger all is going to happen with the writing. I just don’t think we’re organized enough to switch Kavya off between the two of us so that we both get some writing time. This is the ideal situation, but hopefully it will just be too cold that we stay indoors the whole time, Kavya sleeps the entire time, and we do some hardcore writing. Yep. That’s what might happen. I am of course very happy with my word count today, but it’s not so much that I can take so many holidays of having days with word counts of ZERO. Wish me luck!
NanoWriMo 2011: Day 4
DAY FOUR: NOVEMBER 4, 2011
Start Time: None
End Time: None
Today”s Word-count: A Big FAT zero
Total Words Written: 2,200/50,000 (from Day One and Day Two)
The Not so Good: Kavya wasn’t feeling well, so we kept her at home, which meant I got woken up by Kavya saying hello to me and wanting me to read her one of the gabillion Elmo books on the shelf to her. I also had grading to do, which would have taken me about an hour to do, but ended up taking about seven because Kavya kept running away with my papers or wanting me to take a break and clap my hands like a mental patient. So, basically I was absolutely knackered by the time evening rolled around and I made a half-hearted attempt to look at my story, but ended up falling asleep. Tomorrow is Saturday and some words need to get written!
NanoWriMo 2011: Day 3
DAY THREE: NOVEMBER 3, 2011
Start Time: None
End Time: None
Today”s Word-count: A Big FAT zero
Total Words Written: 2,200/50,000 (from Day One and Day Two)
The Good: I got to hang out with Kavya. We talked about many interesting things, like lava formations on the Big Island in Hawaii; she kept saying “more” and after a pause, “waataarr” then proceeded to get the entire cushion I was sitting on, including my trousers wet. We did some yoga. She knows one move: the downward dog. This is followed by her climbing onto my head.
The Not so Good: Thursdays are my full on days where I start at 9am and come home at 4pm. The only writing I did today was while sitting on the train for about fifteen minutes, and that essentially consisted of adding a vowel or an article before closing my laptop back up and walking home. And as soon as I came home, I took a nap. Then I woke up and Kavya was climbing onto me, saying, “Papa, Elmo?” followed by her flinging herself over to the bookshelf to get a book and wanting me to read it to her. So that was the end of my night. Tomorrow doesn’t look all that promising either as we are headed to Sona’s mum and dad’s after my class at S.V.A. and have a fun trip planned for Sunday and Monday to Cape May. So, I am hoping that I keep my momentum going and it doesn’t flatline because I have a novel to write!
NaNoWriMo 2011: Day 2
DAY TWO: NOVEMBER 2, 2011
Start Time: 9:30 am
End Time: 2:00 pm
Today”s Word-count: 1,000/1,644
Total Words Written: 2,200/50,000
The Good: I did force myself to sit down and write. And I am pleased with the progress I am making and with where the story is going and how it’s taking shape. Plus, so far, I haven’t veered off my outline . . . although I’m not moving forward with the plot either. I am trying not to be overly critical and getting too bogged down with the minutia of perfecting my sentences and ideas.
The Not so Good: I dawdled a bit too much during my writing time. I had five hours to write, but a lot of it was taken up by looking up names of Bollywood films I’m referencing in the opening and on youtube videos and articles on Bollywood star, Amitabh Bachchan’s link to inciting mob violence in 1984. Yes, research. It wasn’t necessary. I am also not thrilled I didn’t meet my full word count for yesterday and today, but I am pleased I’m writing. I did still refine and added bits to the first part of the novel, rather than ploughing straight ahead. I’m also needlessly concerned about tomorrow when I have a full teaching load. I should have just concentrated on today and gotten my writing sorted.
Overall: I didn’t get completely bogged down in making the sentences and ideas flow perfectly, and I am happy that I am writing with a direction, so I don’t feel like I’m wasting my energy in developing plot points or characters that aren’t going anywhere (as has happened in the past). I may have stopped the narrative a wee bit with the description and introduction of the sister character in a flashback that wasn’t there before. Hey, I did say I am trying not to be overly critical! So, overall, I feel like I’m making good progress.
NaNoWriMo 2011: Day 1
NOVEMBER 1, 2011
Start Time: 9:00 am
End Time: 11:00 am
Today”s Word-count: 1,200/1,644
Total Words Written: 1,200/50,000
I didn’t hit my exact word count, but so far, so good, athough I did a lot of refining and I did still go back and edit. I’ve actually sat down and written more than I have in the past year and am actually progressing with my novel. So hip, hip hurray for me.
I attempted to write my novel during National Novel Writing Month in 2009 (NaNoWriMo or just plain NaNo), and while I would like to blame many things other than myself for not putting in much of a dent, it was through a lack of planning. I didn’t have an outline or even a sense of where I was going. This year, I am hoping it will be different. I am going to try and write 1,600 words per day.
I found these nifty word count image meter thingies that I am going to update you with daily during November. For those of you interested in using them yourselves, they are very easy to use.
You just put in this url and change the word count, target, and mood number: http://wordmeter.heroku.com/meter/words=1200&target=1644&mood=2
This year, I made an open declaration to all those who read this blog in my resolution post, Literary New Year’s Resolutions for 2011 of my writing goals this year. The reason I made it public rather than simply scribbling it down in my journal is so people would see my progress and I would be publicly shamed if I didn’t make strides in accomplishing my set goals. So far, the only two people who bully me into admitting my failures in letting Jersey Shore or FaceBook trump my writing goals are Sona Charaipotra (that’s my wife) and Dhonielle Clayton, her classmate, fellow fiction writer and homegirl at the New School’s MFA program, and blogger extraordinarie at TeenWritersBloc.com
You will find a public display of my inadequacies and . . . adequacies. No, that’s not the right word. My successes and failures – that sounds better – in keeping up with my writing goals for the next 30 days – click tab above that says “NaNoWriMo” or (check out http://www.navdeepsinghdhillon.com/category/nanowrimo). According to my New Year’s post, every week, I aimed to write 3 days a week, 500 words per session. So 1,500 words per week. It’s now November and my word count is at 0. So slightly short. This month for National Novel Writing Month, I’m going to put in a more respectable effort. Bullies welcome. Caste no bar.
What Are You Doing to Prepare for National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), 2011???
Yep. This cartoon by Errol Elumir pretty much sums up my thoughts on preparing for NaNoWriMo. I have my Scrivener sorted out (here’s a post I wrote to figure out what writing program to use: Scrivener vs Storyist). I have my pencils sharpened and my notebook organized. But . . . no outline!
It’s National Novel Writing Month, Can I Get a Woop Woop?
Two Novembers ago, I attempted to write 50,000 words – a completed novel – during National Novel Writing Month, most commonly referred to as NaNoWriMo, and those in a love-hate relationship with it refer to as NaNo. It has become a perfectly acceptable verb to use during November: “Are you NaNo-ing?” “How’s your NaNo-ing going,” or in my case, “Sod this Nano-ing. I’m NaNo-ed out of my head. ” Of course, I didn’t mean it. I have mad love for NaNo. But also mad hate. While I was doing it in 2009, it was definitely mad hate. And the whole of last year was filled with mad-guilt. This year, thanks to a great chat with Sona and Dhonielle, where I was forced (literally) to break down my story, I’m starting NaNo on a more cheerful and optimistic note. So yes, mad love for now.
Writing, like many other creative fields, is an incredibly lonely and isolating thing to do. It’s difficult being anti-social, not so you can put your feet up and unwind, but so you can sit in a corner of your house with a laptop. So two of the things I like about NaNo is that it connects you with a quarter of a million people around the world who are all trying to write a novel, and there are some amusing “pep talks” by established novelists. All of the participants, especially the aspiring novelists, are thinking This is the year. Very few will be disciplined enough to actually write 1,667 words a day, and make it to the full 50,000. What it gives aspiring novelists is a community and above all, hope. The hope that this year they can put a dent in their novel, maybe finish it, maybe even publish it.
Summer of Fun . . . and no Writing!
Me and Kavya Bhangra-ing On the Beach
This Summer, I had big plans to make amends for my word count of about 0 since January. Needless to say, my New Year’s resolutions didn’t pan out quite as well as I had hoped. I’d like to say it’s because of my work and duties as a father and husband are exhausting. But the primary reason is pure laziness. I had a tiny bit of a bump in the road with my story and rather than sit there and work through it like a proper writer does, I opted to take the approach a muppet would: to go muppetting about and do anything except my writing. Some of it was indeed legit stuff: tidying the flat, grading papers, working on syllabi. Those sorts of productive things. And when I couldn’t be bothered with that, but still didn’t want to face the mess of my novel, I went on FaceBook, which was the beginning of the end. Then there was Twitter. YouTube. And channels on the good ole telly.
Over the Summer, time has been the culprit for my not writing, and I really am a victim this time. Really. Alright, not really. But it is taking much more effort for me to focus because we’re on “holiday” to visit my Mum and Dad in Central California for a month. Before that, Sona’s cousins came to New Jersey for a visit, so of course, we “had to” go to Point Pleasant, chill out on the beach, and scarf down deep-fried oreos and chocolate covered potato chips. Here in California, Sona still has freelance assignments she’s doing, my Mum is at work till 5pm, and my Dad . . . well, let’s just say he’s easily distracted when he gets a phone call or gets on the computer. So, essentially, me and Sona are balancing doing our work with watching Kavya, and our writing has taken a massive backseat.
Tandoor in Back Garden of Central California
Added to the mix are fresh berries, fruit trees, chickens and roosters strutting about, a tandoor and a barbeque (sometimes used to cook the aforementioned chickens) in the acre and a half backgarden of my parent’s home, not to mention a paddling pool, and a shaded patio. So, even if sitting indoors with my laptop open was an option, you can see what a struggle it would be to choose that over a paddling pool. Oh yeh and then there’s that daughter I’m a father to. I love the quality time I’m spending with her, but she is quite knackering. Sona and I are absolutely shattered by the time my mum comes home. And Sona has erratic assignments that she has to do on top of all that, so it’s difficult for either of us to have a solid writing routine.
So, while Sona does her interviews or watches her shows for work, I end up playing . . . I mean taking care of Kavya, This involves a lot of bhangra, running, splashing, tickling, changing of nappies, combing of hair, attempts at putting rubber bands in Kavya’s hair (my wife doesn’t appreciate my artistry in styling my daughter’s hair).
The Challenge
Starting this week, both Sona and me have been trying to get a routine going for our writing. I drop Sona at a Starbucks in the morning and then hang out with Kavya for two hours, sometimes roaming through various shops and the bookstore. Other times just dropping Sona off and coming home and playing in the paddling pool with her. Once we just parked in a shady spot, Kavya took a nap for a good solid hour, and I worked on my outline in my notebook.
Speaking of outlines, I haven’t fully crossed over and embraced the outline, but I am definitely seeing the merits in it. So far, I’ve been doing what I found out is the “skeleton outline” through Scrivener. Basically, I write a general gist of what is going to happen in a scene. The “cons” in this type of outline, I read about in a novel writing book I glanced at while at the bookstore with Kavya, is that it isn’t very thorough. This I can attest to, but it does allow flexibility, which you can see how well that worked out for me and my writing process.
The other type is one I don’t think I’ll ever use for creative writing: the “structure plus.” It’s too analytical. You basically have to know what the purpose of a scene is, and also who exactly is going to be in it, and what some of the lines will be. I wish I could have it all mapped out like that, but just not my style.
I’ve started fiddling about with a hybrid between the two for my own notes. I’ll still use the Scrivener notecards describing the gist.
So far, this hybrid has really helped me shape things up by breaking down the structure. One of the problems I was having was figuring out what happens after a secret is revealed in my novel. At first, I thought the partition of 1947 or 9/11 in and of itself is a catalyst for something. And it very well might be, but that’s not the type of story I’m writing. What I’ve found helpful is to use screenplay structure to break it down. Screenplays are obviously much more rigid in the sense that turning point 1 must occur by page x, or Act I and Act 3 must be 30 pages each, and Act 2 must be 60 pages. Fortunately a novel is more flexible, but can benefit from this structure.
There are three acts or parts of a story: Act 1, 2, and 3. Act I introduced the status quo (characters, setting, current situation, etc). Act 2 complicates things, and Act 3 gives us the new status quo/offers some form of a resolution.
Once I thought about my story in these terms, it made my objective with the outline a little clearer, but I still didn’t know how to integrate some of the historical facts into the narrative, or breathe life into some of my characters that I initially thought would be minor.
My only time to write is late at night, even though I have to be “on” starting relatively early in the morning. I am awakened to Kavya pointing at my stomach and saying “tidoo,” followed by wild slaps and hysterical laughter. So, no snooze button available there. My strategy, for now, is to write a paragraph or so for the crucial parts of my novel, including some transitions, and logistical bits. I’m giving myself four weeks to hammer it out. Then I’ll worry about word count.
Day 1 for me officially starts tomorrow: Thursday, August 11, 2011
Four weeks from tomorrow: Thursday, September 8, 2011
Sona already has a pretty solid outline, so is zooming along. Here’s her post on her Summer Writing.
Wish me luck! And wish Sona luck as well =)
The “Big” Mac Writing Software Showdown: StoryMill vs. Storyist vs. Scrivener!
I was eight years old and in Punjab for the summer holidays the first time I was proud of something I had written. My paternal uncle (chacha) bought me a small 8 x 24 inch-ish wooden plank called a phatta, which village children used to write on with a homemade wooden pen that they filled with ink. I spent hours writing all 35 characters of the Punjabi alphabet on it, and at the end of it, my mum said “good,” then without warning proceeded to wipe the phatta clean with a mildew coloured paste. She had neglected to mention my work would be destroyed. This phatta experience was the first instance of a psychological condition that my wife, Sona Charaipotra, also a writer, my father, Pashaura Singh Dhillon, a Punjabi poet and singer, and I suspect many readers of this blog also suffer from: word hoarding.
Merriam-Webster defines a hoarder as “a person who accumulates things and hides them away for future use.” For as long as I can remember, I have done this with words. This phatta experience was not fun when I realized the permanent loss of data that was to follow. If I had my way, we would have returned to Dubai, United Arab Emirates, with suitcases filled with nothing but stacks of wooden planks, all black with the profound thoughts of an eight year old. Since this phatta thing didn’t work out, I became paper mad (I still am, but to a much lesser degree). I still keep journals. I still write on napkins. And I feel odd leaving the house without paper and a pen or pencil. In graduate school at California State University in Fresno, I rarely used a computer for my writing. Almost all of my work was initially handwritten in notebooks, and then reluctantly written in Microsoft Word to be printed and pimped out for workshop critiques.
But my first novel that I’m in the midst of writing now didn’t even move with this approach. As the research for my novel set around 1984 started piling on, I got lost in entire notebooks and a sea of random papers filled with notes on books, articles I’ve read, on potential characters, real life incidents, ideas for fictional scenes, facts, etc. It all became quite overwhelming. So, I attempted to organize things on my own. I named the main folder on my MacBook Pro, “Writing” and within it, subcategories with names like “Research on Blue Star,” “Bhindranwale,” “Militancy in Punjab,” “Operation Black Thunder,” “Things I May Use,” “Actual Writing,” “Drafts,” “Timelines,” “Characters,” and “Possible Storylines.” Needless to say, that didn’t go very well at all.
During one of my googling binges, I found out about the niche market of Mac applications/software catering to fiction writers that went beyond Final Draft, which is specifically for screenwriters. I’ve tried almost all of them, starting with the free ones, and moving on to the paid ones. All of the paid ones offer generous trial periods, which is what I used to make my decision of which writing software to use (you should too!).
Martin Amis on “The War Against Cliché “
The mere mention of Martin Amis’s name (in England, anyway) sends grown men hurtling towards a nostalgic past they were probably never a part of, and women into hysterics. The sort reserved for Michael Jackson when he did the moonwalk. I can’t think of any other author who has ever had the power to elicit this sort of behaviour from grown men and women, let alone still be able to pull it off in their late sixties.
Martin Amis is the grand-daddy of Lad-Lit (classily referred to as Dick-lit in America). He exploded onto the literary scene at 24 years old, winning the prestigious Somerset Maugham Award with The Rachel Papers in 1973. The plot of his novels has never been very exciting, but he has managed to amazingly move past cliché, despite the story he’s telling, and even the characters controlling the story epitomizing cliché itself.
Goodies and Baddies: Creating Complex Villains and Heroes
Navdeep Singh Dhillon: An Unintentional New Father
Ever since my wife started her MFA in creative writing at the New School last fall, I’ve been spending a lot of time hanging out with my daughter, who just turned one a few days ago. I watch her three nights out of the week, and I’m often asked how I get any writing done when I’m watching her.
The answer is simple: I don’t.
Initially, I attempted to balance the two, which did not end well. I was exhausted, didn’t get any writing done (I calculated once that I’d written 7 words, including pronouns, in five hours), and didn’t feel like I’d spent any time with Kavya. So, I decided to embrace spending time with my daughter properly, and a rather brilliant way of thinking about my writing (pat on back).
Call me a horrible father, but two of our favourite activities, regardless of the season, is to stay indoors and watch youtube, or something on the telly. And yes, we eat at the sofa, crumbs and all, much to Sona’s irritation (“I don’t know why there are crumbs on the sofa, Sona. Maybe YOU put them there from that pizza you had earlier in the week!”). We do, of course go out for excursions to New York, the mall, out for dinners, the park, coffee shops, museums here and there, and the bookshop (an absolute must). But this is what we end up doing when it’s time for papa to “work.”
Maula Jatt, the best film to come out of Lollywood
And what do we watch? Movies. Television Shows. British Soaps (Eastenders yip yip). We also watch plenty of old school Bhangra videos that don’t feature scantily clad girls dancing around men wearing sunglasses inside strobe lit dance clubs. I’m raising a fiery Punjab di Sher Bachiye (little lioness), not a piece of furniture.
The reason I call this “work” is because that’s how I view it. Before Kavya, I never actually watched television for anything other than entertainment, and relied on novels, short-stories, and plays for sources of inspiration and narrative structure. Now, I still use those forms when she’s asleep (nothing beats a Shakespearean villain/hero, and nobody can create tension through dialogue and minimal description like Flannery O’Connor or Ernest Hemmingway). But I have come to truly appreciate the 3 act structure and A/B story of writers behind the television shows and movies I am drawn to. My novel has finally gotten off the ground, and I am attempting to create characters that move beyond stereotype, and have real depth to them. I tried reading some Shakespeare while watching Kavya, but she tried to eat and rip up the pages of his plays. Even e-books don’t work because then she climbs onto my computer and beats the keyboard and screen with all her might until she’s shown something more visually alluring.
Project 1984: A Novel Idea
A Quick Background
No, I’m not referring to George Orwell’s 1949 dystopian novel about a country whose citizens are being oppressed by a totalitarian government. Yes, I’m being facetious.
There are some very eerie similarities between what occurred in Orwell’s Oceanian province, Airstrip One, and the continual oppression and denial of justice that culminated in the government lead Sikh massacre that same year – 1984 – in India, the self-proclaimed “world’s largest democracy.” But I’ll save that for another blog.
There are even more eerie similarities in the shared nature of oppression and struggle for human rights in more “civilized” nations like the United States, France, England, and Canada to name a few. This oppression comes in the form of the creation of – in the words of Edward Said, author of Orientalism – “the other.”
The easy way out is to give you a quick overview of my two cents and leave you a list of links to some great books, articles, and organizations which have compiled some excellent resources on the subject. But I’ve never done things the easy way. Besides, my aim is not to simply disburse information that has already been compiled. It is to attempt to come to an understanding and start developing characters for my story.
Project 1984: An Overview
PROJECT 1984?
The name of my project is an intentional misnomer. Initially, my project was supposed to be based on the events of 1984 in India. It has since expanded to include the aftermath of 9/11 here in the United States, but I had no idea what to call the project. So, for now, the project name stays, while the intent and content change shape.
1984
When people talk about 1984, it’s as if everything hinged on this one year. As if prior to 1984, everything was running smoothly, and after 1984, everything returned to “normal.”
When I first started my project, I wanted to tell the story, in the form of a novel, of the Sikhs, in what I thought were the three key defining moments in my lifetime of the Sikh identity: 1) the storming of the epicenter of Sikh sensibilities and spirituality – the Golden Temple – during Indira Gandhi’s sanctioned and K.S. Brar’s lead “Operation Bluestar” in June, 1984, 2) the era of faked encounters by K.P.S. Gill where many innocent Sikhs were tortured and killed and all of these deaths were dressed up as daring police encounters with dangerous terrorists in some remote area of Punjab, and 3) From November 1-3, 1984, a full day after Indira Gandhi’s assassination, the anti-Sikh pogroms –state sanctioned massacre of Sikhs in Delhi and elsewhere – at the instigation of congress leaders like Jagdish Tytler and Sajjan Kumar, who will, in all likelihood, never face a day in jail.
Jakara 2009: 1984 – Reflect. Respond. React.
A Quick Background
The spirit of the Jakara youth movement is a model that I think should be emulated in other countries, including India. It began in 1999 when a handful of Sikhs in their teens and early twenties attended the Sikh Renaissance Conference, run by people of our parents’ generation. They found the message informative, but thought there wasn’t a meaningful discussion because the youth voice was drowned out by the adults. So they decided to start their own conference and keep the adults out.
Growing up in Fresno, there really was no excuse for me not to have attended Jakara until I was 30, the cut-off age. I always found something else to occupy my time with: in 1999, when they first began, I was 21, in the Naval Reserve, and had just started taking depressing Victorian literature courses at Fresno State. So that summer I had extended my Annual Training in Spain to go travel around Europe. In 2000, I wasted most of my time swimming and playing video games. The year after that I was working on my thesis, then I left to go teach in China for two years, and then I was in graduate school. In the summer of 2005, I got married. Then my wife and I went on a backpacking honeymoon across India for six months. The point is, for some reason, although I was a stone’s throw away, I didn’t think to make it a priority to go. And it isn’t that I found the topics being explored boring; I didn’t bother to see what they were. The truth is, I found the idea of being confined for an entire weekend discussing Sikh issues utterly miserable. Yes, I was one of those people.
Project 1984: Some Resources
I have scoured the internet, bookstores, scholastic journals and databases for exhaustive information to try and understand the reality of the events of 1984, as well as the unique nature of this kind of oppression at the hands of the state. The following is a glimpse of what I deem to be useful, as far as my research is concerned. I am sure I have skipped many books and articles, so please leave a comment or contact me if you feel there are any sources or areas that are amiss:
Bits and pieces of everything: Wikipedia
While I sternly warn my students never to use this source for any of their papers, it has some surprisingly good cursory information. For an overview of the timeline of bluestar, the delhi pogroms, bios of many of the people involved, and it even has information on fake encounter killings. Again, use this to gain a very BASIC idea. It is not a reputable source because anyone can write an article on wikipedia and there is no system of accountability.
.jpg "Bhindranwale")
Bhindranwale and the rise of militancy in Punjab
Identity and Survival: Sikh Militancy in India 1978-1993 by Kirpal Dhillon
Before you ask, no I am not related to Kirpal. Nor do I get a cut in the profits. Now living in Bhopal, Kirpal was the Director General of Punjab Police within weeks of Operation Blue Star. It is very eloquently written and discusses the roles of K.P.S. Gill and Lt. Gen. K.S. Brar. Both men, incidentally, have produced memoirs of their own, which I have read, but cannot in good conscience provide as a resource for people to go out and buy. I would recommend reading it for the active researcher though.
Project 1984: Bringing it Home
In 1985, I was about seven years old and living in Crawley, a small town 40 minutes by tube from London. I can’t remember exactly what we were all watching. We were all very particular about what we watched as a family: Black Adder, Only Fools and Horses, Monty Python, or Lenny Henry. The phone rang and my mum picked it up. She said very little, which is very unlike her. She loves to gab. My dad got up from the sofa and went over to give my mum a cuddle. Definitely very unlike him.
Earlier that day, my dad had been upset and livid as he heard a news story on the radio about militants gunning down a middle-aged woman and her two pre-teen daughters, one of them handicapped. “What kind of people are these?” he had said. It turned out, the woman was Minder Massi, my mum’s sister, a fiercely independent large framed woman in her 40s, who loved to gossip and could spend hours telling low-brow Punjabi jokes involving bodily functions.
Her first daughter had died of pneumonia when very young and as a result my mother had gone to live with her for several years. So their relationship was more like a mother and daughter. The mentally handicapped girl was named Jippan – she had Down Syndrome – and we used to get on incredibly well. She taught me how to play gend-gita, a game a little bit like Jacks, but played with pebbles, and a healthy dose of aggression.
With my father’s arms around her, my mother listened to the speaker at the other end of the phone give her the news. My mother’s sister and her two children were gunned down by militants for a perceived slight committed by her son-in-law. He was later hacked to pieces by a childhood friend, one of the militants, his body placed in several paper bags -the kind used by butchers – and delivered to his parent’s home in a narrow alley in Kharu, a small village near Tarn-taran. The reverberations of these deaths on the dynamic of their family are so gut-wrenching and far reaching that, over 26 years later, neither the year nor any of the events are ever mentioned.
My Favourite Fiction of 2010
As the curtain draws on 2010, I thought I’d give you a list of my favourite books of the year . The way I chose these books is a very scientific methodology; sometimes I pick up a book because I like the font, other times because I’ve heard something about the author or the subject, but most of the time I’ve chosen books at random from one of many bookstore dates me, Sona, and our now ten month old daughter –Kavya – routinely go to in New York, New Jersey, or California. In no particular order:
1. Serious Men by Manu Joseph
This highly underrated story explores caste issues using humor. Think of him as a funny Rohinton Mistry. The main character, Ayyan Mani, is a middle-aged member of the “untouchable” Dalit Community, working as an assistant to a brilliant Brahmin astronomer in Bombay. Discouraged by his position in society and in his career, he concocts a small lie at first – that his ten-year-old son is a genius. The lies start piling up and reach epic, but utterly hilarious, proportions.
2. The Sea by John Banville
The writing in any of John Banville’s books is just breathtaking, but “the sea” is my all time favourite that I just picked up a week ago in Fresno, California. It feels almost like poetry, rather than fiction. Here are two examples taken from the first paragraph: “The seabirds mewled and swooped, unnerved, it seemed, by the spectcle of that vast bowl of water bulging like a blister, lead-blue and malignantly agleam.” And “Someone has just walked over my grave. Someone.”
A Christmas Present: Time
Family Visit to California for the Holidays
This winter, while visiting my parents in California, I had big plans to put a dent in my novel. Or at the very least finish my short-story that has been on the backburner since the beginning of Fall. We’ve only arrived here four days ago, but already I feel an aire of complete unproductivity looming. So far, I have done bugger-all related to the actual writing of my novel. Although I did manage to skim through “Points of View” and refine my handwritten notes. But there is a seemingly valid excuse for me not writing: our baby is teething. For those of you without little bundles of wobbling, energetic, laughing, crying, screaming, adorable, irritating, frustrating, little versions of yourselves, let me translate what teething means: Life is hell.
Kavya the Half-Tooth Wonder
Our 10-month old daughter has two half-teeth protruding from the top and bottom of her largely gum filled mouth, which she shows us in one of two inexplicable ways: 1) With zero warning, she unhinges her jaw to a 180 degree angle so she can laugh hysterically at random things: the fridge, a person’s face, Sona dancing to my melodious rendition of “brown girl in the ring.” 2) Almost as abruptly, but with about a two second warning, her upper lip starts to quiver like jelly on a plate, and then she takes a deep breath. This brings a false sense of calm, and is immediately followed by huge wails of shrieking like I’ve just told her I shot the Easter Bunny. In the head. And am making her rabbit stew for dinner.
Teething biscuits don’t work. Neither does medicine, unless the goal is simply to knock your baby out, or the teething has induced fever (as if just the teething wasn’t enough). So, essentially, I’m in the “on” position the entire day.
Dead Narrators in Fiction
There is surprisingly very little information on the internet about using dead narrators as a fictional device. It is a facet of storytelling that I find fascinating, partly because I am very anti-social and don’t get out much, but primarily because I have been thinking about killing one of the main characters in my novel, and having him continue to narrate his story. Perhaps there’s a reason people don’t return my phone calls. Or my texts. Or my Facebook messages.
I have been told that this kind of narration is akin to burping at the dinner table or having a unibrow on a first date: something beneath the refined and well-groomed writer of literary fiction, but commonly used by those uncouth and low brow Young Adult writers as they smoke that hashish in their trailers while drinking Hennessey out of brown paper bags.
Young Adult authors, unfortunately, don’t get their props. And I’m about to take away what little props they do get by re-distributing the art of the dead narrator to other genres.
Some of the reviews on YA books like The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold irritate me because they reference Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight saga as using a similar technique. And she doesn’t. Vampires, while technically dead, are not really dead narrators. Unless someone drives a stake through Edward’s heart (I am so there for that book and that movie) making him cease to exist, and then he continues to narrate the story, I don’t think the Twilight series should count as having a dead narrator. He is, in Meyer’s reality, alive. Sort of. Also, it’s a rubbish book, with rubbish characters, a rubbish plot, and rubbish writing. Sorry, had to get that out.
Using a dead narrator will either cause people to think of you as a very clever writer (ideal) or someone using a gimmick and that too a clichéd gimmick (not ideal).
