New Austin impressions

I. Pecan trees in winter: The very best haunted house tree. Knobbly knuckled branches tipped with dead nut shells. They go very well with the psychotic grackle screams. Not to mention the crying-baby doves.

II. Adult Swim: The kind, generous, brilliant, talented and stunningly sexy friend who is letting me camp out in her apartment sleeps all day and stays up all night watching Cartoon Network. Not my favorite shows, but I’ve discovered they make perfect background noise for the writing process. Just amusing enough to keep me from ignoring them completely, but not so engrossing that I quit working altogether.

II.a. I should have a third thing here. I do everything in threes, including criminal charges in hard news ledes. Seriously, if you try hard enough, you can make it fit in every story. Ha ha! Kidding! The facts determine the story! Sensation is for hacks!

III. Ah, yes—the housing market: Every single apartment ad on Craigslist is spam. Every. Single. One.

(Previous posts on moving to Texas can be found here, here, and here.

GTT

So. This has happened.

I’m not sure I can blame my lack of posts and twitterings entirely on the move, but I’m going to anyway. The fact that I didn’t do a Road to Austin: Phase III post, or discuss the realization that the only way I could afford to move was to sell my ancient car, or at least acknowledge New Year’s Eve and develop some appropriate resolutions offends my sense of plot, but I suppose real life never does have a coherent story.

Although I am camped out on a friend’s couch, car-less and unemployed, I have to say I love Austin. Early impressions: (1) Creepy birds, mainly the doves, which sound like a crying baby, and a species of grackle which makes a variety of charming car-alarm noises when excited, which is all the time. (2) Street con artists. I’ve seen my fair share of begging, both here and abroad, but Austin seems to have more than its fair share of able-bodied, sober, perfectly sane, well-dressed and suspiciously articulate beggars, all with a story to tell. This is excellent. My goal in life is to live in a post-apocalyptic movie, but with plumbing, and I think I am getting closer to that point. (3) College students. There are a lot of them, and at some point in the past decade, they apparently began admitting a bunch of twelve-year-olds as freshmen. Bah humbug, get off my lawn, et cetera, et cetera.

Anyway, the important thing is this: About two months ago, I got all wrapped up in selling the car, packing, saying goodbye, repacking, filling out job applications, and packing, and I quit writing, and social media-izing, and as I look at this long, rambling, inarticulate post, I’m thinking maybe I should have stayed quit, but be that as it may, I’m back.

And I’m in Texas. And here I will stay, at least longer than I’ve stayed anywhere else. I am too old to be constantly picking up and moving. Let’s see, I lived in Georgia four years, which was longest, so that means I have to stay in Austin for five, which means 2018. In 2018, there will be a new president, and I will be—gah, old. But whatever happens, I’ll be here.

The Road to Texas, Phase 1

I’ve tried various approaches to this writer thing. Last year, it was all about being a deadbeat mooch, pretending money wasn’t important and focusing on my Art.

Then I tried being a World Traveler and Self-Sacrificing Volunteer.

Soon, all the unimportant money had dribbled away. I had deep doubts about the value of my volunteering. (Some people are born to make a difference. Some people should really go back to work and just send money.) And the Art—hah! Pah! And even, bah!

That’s when I remembered the whole starving-artist-with-a-menial-job thing. It’s unpleasant, yes, but it has all that romance and cachet and stuff.

Restaurant work seemed the most traditional choice. The application process, however, was tricky. I waited tables in college but in the subsequent ten years, I had made an important self-discovery: I kind of hate people a little. (See item re: volunteering, above.) I really, really, really don’t like depending on being cheerful and friendly and helpful for my daily bread. True, at the very highest levels, wait staff are expected to be cold and snooty, but we really don’t have those kinds of restaurants here in Dog Patch, and I wouldn’t be qualified for them if we did.

So, I put in a bunch of applications at various establishments, listing my experience as a server, but gently encouraging them to consider me for any position but.

Confusing for people.

Lately I’ve been trying to have a more honest and open approach to life, but my ‘I hate people and do not wish to serve them’ explanation seemed ill-advised.

And then I heard about the Café.

They were hiring for the summer.

They didn’t require experience, preferring to train their help themselves, rather than deal with people used to other restaurants’ systems.

They were looking for a kitchen helper who would be on the fast track to a supervisorial position.

It sounded too good to be true …

…

…

.

Funny how these things work out.

Watch this space for Part II of Phase I (shut up) in the coming days!

Dum dum dummmmm.

End of the road

 Asheville, NC

So, here I am.

I've been in the States long enough that jet lag is no longer a convenient excuse for my lack of productivity. Can I get away with Seasonal Affective Disorder?

Anyway, I'm here, and the time has come to put together some belated goals for 2012. Not resolutions, because not even my very best friend would call me resolute. So this is the plan: one, move to Texas; two, finish a screenplay, or at least a first draft; and three, I don't really have a third goal, I've just always tried to make lists in threes ever since my days of writing murder-trial stories on autopilot.

Did you know that you can write 99 percent of a lead article on a major court verdict before the verdict is actually returned? You just leave the lead sentence blank and fill the body of the story with quotes from the closing arguments. Very handy when the jury decides it can't make a decision without trekking out to the crime scene and viewing it personally at 9 o'clock at night. That way, when they finally do make a call, you only have one sentence left to write before going to press.

Anyway, that's where things stand right now. I want to move to Austin (special SXSW discount for residents!), and I want to finish something. Anything.

To make up for wasting this much of your time, allow me to direct your attention to a very well put take-down of a recent episode of Glee, a show which must be punished for its mysterious ability to make me simultaneously want to vomit and desperately need to find out what happens in the end, by the Bitter Script Reader.

Heading home

Delhi, India

My long sabbatical from writing is nearly over. Tomorrow we fly home, and I go back to either attempting that always promised, never finished screenplay, or possibly just fiddling with the Awful Space Opera some more. With any luck, I will also become a better, or at least more consistent, blogger. (Eaag. I still hate that word. One of these days I will come up with a better one. Then I will become famous, and all internet denizens will want to copy me. Within a few short years, only the completely out-of-touch will ever utter the B-word in an unironic fashion. Also, tabloids will start rumors that Amy Poehler has had some work done as she begins to resemble me in a very suspicious way.)

(Okay, that last line was weird. And, I'm fairly certain, not funny. But I have a lot of packing to do before that flight and rewriting is just not on the agenda.)

(Also, I keep feeling like this post should involve some sort of mystical reflection on the culture and people of India? And I don't actually have mystical reflections? Danae, you got anything you want to add here? Seriously, leave the damn saris behind. YOU WILL NOT WEAR THEM. Okay, it looks like I'm needed in the luggage assembly area. They're now charging a @$&*# $200 for excess baggage.)

India was all right. I might be back.

Out of gas

Yesterday, Danae filled the pressure cooker with dhal, got it just nearly boiling, and the gas went out.

We have been discussing the situation with the gas cylinder—not very old but mysteriously unproductive—for weeks. There was the possibility of a leak. There was the question of whether or not the burners have been kept sufficiently clean.

The possibility that blackmarket gas cylinders might be sold somewhat less than full somehow never came up.

So, the dhal is waiting half-cooked on the counter, hopefully kept more or less refrigerated by the general icyness of our kitchen, and we are off searching for yet more black market fuel. You can't get legal fuel (sold by the government) most of the time—it's only delivered on certain days, infrequently enough that law-abiding housewives keep a spare cylinder on hand to avoid doing without. So that would be an impractical solution at this point.

But half of life in much of the world is at least slightly illegal, so a-fueling we will go. Hopefully we will end up with a more or less full canister this time.

(Once again, I'm pretty sure there's something about the way I use 'hopefully' that's wrong. But I cannot for the life of me remember what it is. Merry Christmas!)

The limitations of 'image search'

I'm currently attempting to Google the identity of some sort of four-legged critter I keep seeing from the train. So far, 'India animal looks like a cross between deer and camel,' 'Indian gazelle,' 'Indian deer,' and, least likely of all, 'Indian wild camel' have been completely useless.

Should I mention that they seem to have unusually large heads? They seem to have unusually large heads. Also, they primarily come out at dawn or dusk, in the fog. And only near trains that are moving exceptionally fast. Also, one time, a terrifyingly fast bus. But I'm pretty sure it looked a little like a deer, a little like a camel, and a little like a cow.

Somebody told me there's a deer called a blue cow. This wasn't remotely blue, but ...

...
...
...
...

... jackpot.

According to my search results, which I have not bothered to read, they come in blue and brown. Nilgai it is.

I don't see why my original search didn't work. How come no one else in the world has noticed that these things look like a cross between a deer and a camel?

Wish I'd seen a blue one.

. . .

I have nothing to say to you about writing, because I haven't been doing any. However, if you are planning to become fabulously wealthy writing a best-selling novel but can't quite seem to get started, read this old Dave Barry column on the Da Vinci Code.

If you are not hoping to publish a bestseller, read it anyway. 

If you can't read, get someone to read it to you.

Dust and cargo

                                                                                                                                                            Bihar

I changed my mind about Benares—it is now my second favorite place in India. My favorite is Bihar.

Tell Indians you're going to Bihar and you'll get a lot of strange looks. It's not exactly a major tourist destination. But I realized a long time ago that my dream of traveling has a lot less to do with beautiful historic places and cultures and a lot more to do with wanting to visit the outer planets on Firefly.

The border cities of Bihar seem a lot more like Badger's kind of town than Calcutta and and Benares. You can see beautiful sunsets over beautiful places in Benares, but here, you can see a beautiful sunset over massive oil refineries through the thick dust clouds kicked up by the constant stream of trucks heading into Nepal.

There is no comparison.

Bad beyond belief

Benares, India

I had forgotten how bad this thing is; I really had.

Retyping the manuscript is not as inspiring as I had hoped. It would seem that nothing can make the Awful Space Opera less awful.

More explosions might help, but those might be hard to come by on a sparsely populated planet. More monsters? We already cut the dragons, and I think adding something similar would be a step backward.

The prison escape sequence is too long. It shows the weaknesses in my dialogue far to clearly. How can I make it shorter?

One thing that I intend on doing (I have a very strong feeling that this is truly execrable, grammar-wise. But I haven't had my coffee and I don't care.) is to write draft three in the form of a screenplay. That will, hopefully, help me cut out unnecessary text. Hopefully. (Drew, what was it you tried to teach me about why I use “hopefully” wrong? Is it something to do with it ending in “ly?”)

But draft two is turning out pretty much as bad as draft one.

The really awful thing is, it's also turning out longer.

By the way, I have lice. Well, actually, I don't, not yet, but considering how prevalent they were at the orphanage Danae dragged me to last week I'm sure I will have them soon.

Breakfast

Today I would like—

Let's not make this decision hastily.

Dutch baby? No. Apple dumplings? No. Quiche? No.

Scones! Homemade, creamy, buttery scones, with currants. And bacon and poached eggs, with avocado on the side.

(Would you believe that no one grows avocados here? The tropics are completely wasted on these people.)

I should probably go take my cold shower and have my processed cheese and cracker breakfast. With instant coffee.

Some of the scones should be oat scones.

More Adiga

Editor's note: This post was scribbled into a notebook during a painful period of separation from my laptop, then transcribed later.

Like the fool I am, I rushed through my long, depressing, Man-Booker prizewinning novel because I wanted it to be over. Now, I've got four more days in this village and nothing at all to read.

And no laptop, so no progress on the novel, either.

Leaving the computer behind in Calcutta was a very bad last-minute decision. I suspect this is the beginning of the end of my NaNoWriMo pretensions.

Last Man in Tower

                                                                                                                                    West Bengal

I keep running out of books.

I know, I know, I'm supposed to be writing a book, not reading them, and I am.

I will be.

I'm just getting my thoughts together.

But there must be time for, ahh, inspiration and refueling. And I keep running out of material with all this constant train travel.

This is how I allowed myself to be sucked into AravindAdiga's latest vortex of despair, which I bought because a) its cover made it look like a fun adventure story, b) there was no description of the plot on the back, just review quotes, and c) I thought I should read more Indian authors while I'm in India.

Last Man in Tower is about how a bunch of ordinary people work themselves up to the decision to throw one of their neighbors off an upper-story balcony for a bunch of money.

I don't care if I just gave away the ending. If you are now discouraged from reading it, good. I have saved you untold grief.

Sister, you backside—here!

Stuffing sixteen people into a car is a little more complicated when they don't all speak the same language.

What we have here ...

I don't care much for foreign languages.

I love English so much that I can happily waste hours each day playing scrambled word games on my Kindle, just for the joy of the words themselves—and because I get to pat myself on the back each time I remember I can spell “prise” with an “s.”

Reaching that level of smug self-satisfaction in a foreign language takes decades of intensive study. And my ego just doesn't have that kind of time.

Danae signed up for private Hindi lessons almost as soon as we arrived. She dutifully records her teenage tutor's every word (excepting the ones that deal primarily with her complicated personal life), so as to perfect her pronunciation. 

And she has gamely embraced the infantilization that is an inescapable side effect of attempting to communicate in an unknown tongue: She sounds like a two-year old with a speech impediment, and native speakers treat her like one.

Granted, there are times when relying on a combination of English spoken very loud and extravagant hand gestures fails, but in my experience, you're just as likely to suffer a total communication breakdown with a few half-learned phrases of the local language as you are with none.

At least in English, left and right don't rhyme.

Consider the following exchange with Danae's tutor, concerning the Muslim festival popularly known as Bakra Eid, because it features the sacrifice of a goat:

“Next week am festival—Bakra Eid.”

“Bakra Eid?”

“Ha. Bakra is God.”

(Eyes become unfocused, attempting to remember the lesson when the word “bakra” last came up. God?)

“Bakra?”

“Ha. Hindi-'Bakra.' English-'God.'”

(With deepening confusion—)

“God?”

“Ha.”

“'Bakra' is 'God?'”

“Ha.”

“Uh, 'Allah?'”

“Nehi, nehi! God! God!”

“Oh, goat.”

You see? Replace all those words with wild hand gestures, and you still have no idea why so many neighborhoods are suddenly full of extra livestock, but at least you could avoid suggesting to a devout Muslim that she worships goats.

. . .

So, undoubtedly you want to know about how the novel's coming. It's, well, today is the first day during the official Month in which my computer has worked, so so far, it's not coming. Tricky, trying to keep up with these deadlines on the old Inspiron 600m. (Why the “m?” That named sounded dated the moment I bought it, and this was a state-of-the-art machine once.)

So, if you figure there are twenty-six days left in the month, divided into 50,000 words, that equals—a whole bunch of words a day. I'll try to put in a fair bit on the train to Calcutta tomorrow.

Everything is copy

Globe-trotting is definitely not conducive to fiction writing. I need a certain level of boredom to get lost in my own imagination, and India is definitely not boring. But oh, the material ...

I have always been leery of using actual human beings as inspiration for fictional characters. No matter how sympathetic the portrayal, it still feels like exploitation. Otherwise, the neighbor who recently told me and my late-returning roommates to go on and have a good rest so she could beat us in the morning would definitely have a place in my next project.

The city of Delhi itself has a beautifully post-apocalyptic feel sometimes. (This, coming from me, is a compliment, and I hope will be taken as such). The gorgeous crumbling architecture, the ever-hungry pariah kites wheeling overhead, the very modern police officers guarding ancient ruins—all this contributes to an atmosphere that cries out for some epic plot to hurtle through its streets.

One element that definitely belongs in a film, rather than a novel, is the beautifully enunciated station announcements on the metro. If the authorities were not (with reason) so paranoid about attacks on public transportation, I would try to capture the perfect Anglo-Indian elocution of the two announcers on my voice recorder. But the recorder would have to be held right against a speaker to get decent sound quality, and I am too much of a coward to do anything so peculiar in public, for fear of being hauled away for questioning.

Here endeth my observations for the week. I'm still debating whether or not to attempt National Novel Writing Month this year. It would be very hard to do, combined with the commitments I've made to do some volunteer work in November. But I hate to put it off a whole year.

I might just cheat: Instead of starting a new project, do a rewrite of that awful novel I abandoned four months ago. (Was it four months? Who knows.) I'm not sure I'll even have time for that. But perhaps it's worth a shot.

Wild adventure, and other distractions

I have news.

No, I didn't get a book deal.

Or a movie deal.

Or acquire my first blog follower. Stop trying to make me feel like a huge loser.

I am, however, spending the next four months in India, which is pretty cool, even though most of my not-in-space-or-with-dragons story ideas take place in Africa. I'll go to Africa some other time.

In between shots, and travel plans, and being told I have to go somewhere else to get the next shot (who knows where), and packing, and wishing my visa would arrive already, I keep wondering about how this will fit in with writing.

I suspect the answer is that it won't.

Oh, I'll keep a journal, of course, since apparently one is required. (Reminds me, I was working on a post about journaling. Must finish that.) But I have a very strong feeling that I will not keep up with my commitment to spend some time working on either my novel or a screenplay each day (all depends on which project I've most recently decided is a completely hopeless case).

I'm a little depressed about this prospect, since I spent so many years putting off my writing career and only recently sat down and made myself get started.

I particularly wanted to participate in National Novel Writing Month this November, and I really, really doubt that's going to happen.

Still, it's all material, right?

Meanwhile, other people out there are writing, and you should get to know them. In particular, the Princess Scribe, whose review of Cowboys and Aliens is hilarious.