Writing about Ugly Daffodils

This is my first true day off in a very long time: my stories are all with my listeners, speaking for themselves, I have managed the Hydra of grading (though not conquered the monster), and the cats are fed. It seems meet, then, to just catch my breath and take stock as I work my way through my daily allotment of caffeine.

Writing the stories that I have been working on for the past few months has completely transformed my inner landscape. Before I sat down with this project, I was confident of what I referred to as my writing style. I was sure of my ability to reflect internal realities of my characters in a believable way. I didn't care much for including dialogue, didn't trust my characters when they opened their mouths. Most of my writing revolved around recognition of the familiar in a strange world and I built epiphanies, peripeteia, and happily-ever-after's around these. I had thought that two of my major challenges had been tense consistency and avoiding purple prose. Every time I used to revise my work, I would pay meticulous attention to each verb, try to sort out the diction, and endlessly revise syntax. A lot of times, I would re-read a story and fail to find the pivot around which I had thought I had written, and discard that story. I flirted with magical realism, usually unsuccessfully.

I should have known better. I should have read less Virginia Woolf. I should have loved Dickens less.

One of my University professors often said that it was better to write about the pattern on the carpet one stood on, than to write about daffodils. He meant that good writing emerged from being true to one's experience, rather than a conscious or unconscious emulation of admired writers. At that time, all those decades ago, my writing was largely narcissistic (yes, Reader, I kept a journal), and even the fiction and poetry I wrote derived from a very personal perspective. I had a blank book, shaped like a peacock in which I kept my most treasured poetry and this, if anything does, reflects the relationship I had with the process. I had interpreted my professor's words rather too literally and written exclusively about how events and people affected me: that, then, was my pattern on the carpet, my way of avoiding the daffodils. If I were to read any of it now, I would find it claustrophobic and unforgivably abstract. I would burn it all, if it wasn't already lost. I wish I could deny all kinship with it.

I should have stuck to the daffodils, even though I had never seen a daffodil then. My professor claimed that they were rather ugly, as flowers go, Wordsworth notwithstanding. I should have written about ugly daffodils.

These past few months have changed my understanding about carpet patterns and daffodils. This is a good thing. This project has given my characters gumption enough to speak up. Now, if a character does not speak often, I tend to revise the story, coax the silence, and I try to encourage that character to open up a bit. I try to see if the narrator's voice is not too intrusive. I try to contain the narrator's voice to strictly external descriptions. Instead of anchoring the entire plot on a single moment of recognition or realization, I try to sustain a mood of a scene. I now see that my plots had proven too heavy for those single moments to carry, and the forced silence of my characters loomed large, adding to the gravid nature of the stories. I wonder that my readers did not complain of headaches as they ploughed through them! I am learning to recognize and avoid what my wonderfully patient publisher calls "the dreaded inner voice."

Now, I do not revise as much for tense and syntax; using dialogue has done wonders for that! Instead, I try to establish a Rasa or a general emotional atmosphere through a scene or section. I try to understand the many transient emotions that constitute this stable Rasa. I try to ensure that the nature of the characters who inhabit that scene are believable, elastic enough to feel what the scene needs them to feel, and convincing enough to operate within its parameters. I am trying to work on my listening skills, so when these characters begin to speak, I can understand the scene better.

I do not know if this makes my writing any better or worse than it was a few months ago. However, this process has brought me a clearer understanding of my relationship with the writing process. It is my ardent and genuine hope that one day, I finally learn how to write well about the pattern of the carpet I stand on, and find that it is not that different from writing about ugliness of daffodils.









 

Mythos and Logos

Kristin tagged me to do this in a post. I cannot resist this tag, just as I cannot resist meeting Kristin over a bowl of coffee or soup as we read and comment on each others' stories. I remain grateful for her patience, as, of late, my stories have been woven around Indian mythology, a universe as alien to her as the world of the deep ocean is to me. She continues to inspire me to do better with every word I write. I also tag Marissa, a talented writer who shares our love of mythology and folklore.

What am I working on?

My book: An anthology for which I have a contract with a publisher takes up most of my waking hours when I am not working. These stories examine mythological characters Indian Mythology, who face issues and problems that are surprisingly contemporary. My hope is to enable today's readers to recognize themselves in these characters.

Assorted short stories: These are not based on mythology and they do not have a specific publisher or purpose that drives them. The immigrant identity fascinates me and I see shining vignettes or moments around me, around which I quilt and embroider a story. These stories feel like parts of my own psyche, detaching themselves, metamorphosing, and flying out of the window. I do send them out and some are picked up for publication; and so I lose them.

How does my work differ from others in its genre?

I think that my stories have a unique place, straddling as they do, continents, ages, and present a moment in the ever-changing ethos of the consciousness of an Indian American immigrant, operating from the particular canvas of experiences and responses that are personal and individual. My work is unique in narratology and treatment of the subject, yet it is informed by a rich heritage and it is not lonely. I have many writers (both, past and contemporary) whom I continue to enjoy and admire even as I resist emulating them and work on developing my own narrative voice.

Why do I write what I do?

I write because I don't have a choice. My stories, I sometimes fear, express some kind of a wild, untamed, un-tame-able wildness that is both within me as well as in the world around. At the same time, writing stories is my therapy, my cure against all manner of madness and chaos that are so much a part of one's every day life.

Usually, the story chooses the teller, so I suppose I don't really choose what I write much. The book I am writing is about Indian myths. I find epics, folklore, and mythology very easy to relate to. These stories provide a continuation of the human experience, at the same time, resonate with my internal realities. A lot of my work derives from these genres.

The stories in folklore and myths are ancient, yet I find that they are renewed within me. I try to tell them in their renewed form. For example, when my house burned and I could not go home for a while, I recognized my unwilling banishment in Sita's imprisonment. That is where my writing lives, between this world and the one of the myths.

I write because I have no other way of telling these stories that insist that they must be told.

I  write because I know of no greater magic than that of the written word.

How does my writing process work?

I just blogged about this: I don't have a process, per say, or a part of my day or week I reserve for my writing. Sometimes, I get up in the night with an itch beneath my fingers and a slight nausea and the only way to get normal is to write it out; this usually is out in a few hours. But then, I have entire weeks when I don't do anything but write, weeks when I have planned to work on certain aspects of stories, aspects that need revision or re-writing.  

I fear I might have a writing disorder. I do not particularly enjoy the writing, and it is really hard work.

It is frustrating because what I write is not brilliant, beautiful stuff; most of it needs to be revised, re-revised, and re-visited yet again in order to be just acceptable.  It feels like a narcissistic indulgence, accompanied with guilt at indulging in it. But I love it so much that I cannot imagine doing anything else.

May the gods never visit such horrible fates on anyone I know!