Meanwhile, writing (besides this blog) is still happening. Found a way to advance the second novel without being paralyzed by impossible word counts. Two hundred fifty words into the manuscript each day. Achievable, right? The weekly 2400-word goal I naively … Continue reading Writer’s Update
I write about my eyes today. They have started to fail. This isn’t news, really–I’ve been noticing for the past two years. Possibly longer. Thought I could restore 20/20 with good ol’ vitamin-rich diet and regular dose of Lutein. Nope. … Continue reading My Eyes
My commute to work takes an hour and twenty minutes, one way. Downhill walk, a train ride, a bus ride, and finally, a short walk into the campus. Crazy, I know. But I don’t hate it, which is even crazier. … Continue reading Commuter
For some reason, spy novels are finding their way in my have-read list. More recent titles, not John le Carré classics. Last week, for instance, I finished Lauren Wilkinson’s American Spy which was just published last February. Pausing here to … Continue reading Of Literary Spies and Real-Life Selves
I’m a morning person. It’s by habit, no, compulsion. Go back to sleep, the boyfriend urges when I stir on a weekend morn, but the wheels are already turning. He’s drifted off by the time my feet find the slippers … Continue reading Morning Person
It was 2011 and I was in my mid-twenties. I still lived with my mom and siblings being from a culture where it’s quite common for adult children to live with their parents until they married. But we are not … Continue reading The Bachelorette Pad, Revisited
I woke up one day to find myself living in a surreal-sounding year called two-thousand-nineteen, working three jobs. Three jobs! There’s definitely truth to that saying that if you wanted to make God laugh, tell him your plans. I have … Continue reading Twenty-nineteen, warmed up
Keeping to short forms these days. Flash fiction, poetry, something in between. I got busy during the summer moving to another apartment. This was followed by a two-week stay in New York City where I had planned to luxuriate in daily writing sessions. Writing I did, but it wasn’t as productive as planned. Something about tight spaces, places to be explored, heat and humidity. Thought I could rally the necessary discipline to power through and produce a first draft by the end of 2018. No dice. I’m not a trained poet, but here I am trying. Lessons might be in … Continue reading Shorts
New: Novel-in-progress. I smile as I write this because there isn’t a word of it written down. It’s all in the head at the moment. I’m taking a breezier approach with this one, not planning the chapters in advance, letting characters take shape and decide the course of things. I know their faces, their jobs. I feel their emptiness, know how to break their hearts. Someday I’ll give them life in pages. Old: Short story about a boy with a questionable gift. A beast, this one. It’s a story I truly want to tell, but why, oh why, is it … Continue reading New and Old
What a year! Finished the novel–took me five years. It’s out there, looking for a home away from its fussy creator. Whether it gets published or not, it’s finished and I’m happy with what I accomplished. Writing it has definitely taught me a lot. Ideas for the next novel swim in my head. It’s just a matter of spotting the one that moves slower than the rest, the one fat with questions and worthy to be dissected for the next couple of years or so. Writing life aside, older sister got married last month. We were so busy with the … Continue reading Lightness of a Beginning
