Week 2 of the writing log. Thanks to summer classes, I couldn't write as much as I wanted to. Hopefully, after this week, I'll be able to spend more time with it. Anyways, this is what writing looked like for me last week.
Writing Day 6: June 12th
So today I brainstormed a little bit more of my experimental novel short story thing. I'm pretty sure I have it somewhat figured out. the original plan was to have around 7 20-30 page stories, and then it turned into 9, and now I worry that it'll be way more than that but here's what we have so far.
Synopsis: Gayathri explores the intersectionality of her queerness and her culture by writing stories that explore what she's going through. occasionally, her stories meddle with her life and magic is not as far off as it seemed.
1. When the Birds Don't Fly Away: We start with Gayathri as a child after she hears the story of the king, whose wives performed a ritual, because he wanted a child. When Gayathri asked her mother if the king's wives wanted a child, she replied "yes! all women want to be mothers." Gayathri's thought process was "I don't want to be a mother, that's boring. I'd rather be a father who doesn't have to cook or mop the floor." And thus she begins a story about Rakesh who performs a ritual because he wants a child, and he has to carry it. Throughout this story, we follow Gayathri question of her gender as she explores it through the gender-fluid character of Raksha. This story takes her up to like middle/end of highschool.
2. I didn't have a name for it yet: Directly following the previous story, we follow Gayathri as she tries to define her queerness and finds that she doesn't have the words in her mother tongue for it. We follow her as she graples with Lables for both her gender(probably fluid) and pronouns, as well as sexuality (she's technically aro/ace), but the labels just stress her out. She dives into the world of the lgbt community, but the emphasis on labels stresses her out because they don't translate to her culture, and runs into the issue of the words in her language that would have represented her have been erased because of colonialism. By the end of the story, she realizes that labels don't work for her. They worked for her character Raksha in her previous story, and that's completely fine, but figuring out a concrete box for herself that ties it in a really pretty bow just isn't something that she feels is true in her life. Sometimes she feels like a man, and other times a women, and sometimes in between, but she want to be and love as she is. she doesn't need to define it. The only semi-concrete thing I know about this story is the fact that I think I want to bring back the bird motif in this one, and reference the last story a lot and almost write it as a response piece or opposition to it.
3. So It Be (or "Tadastu" depending on how I work with it): This is going to be an experimental piece that explores generational traditions. At this point, Gayathri is out of college, and the looming arranged marriage prospects float around her. She starts to continue the story of Raksha through the life of Raksha's son Abhi. She plans for Abhi to take after his parent and take after the family business(?), but Abhi basically rebels again Gayathri as she writes the story, insisting that he'll find his own way. Gayathri is in a position where she isn't opposed to an arranged marriage. After all, her sister had one and she's so happy and loves her husband so much. And Gayathri isn't a lesbian, so there's no one she'd rather marry than a man. She just doesn't love anyone that way, so she could go along with it. she could make a good wife. she could make a good mother. she could be happy. Besides, she didn't have an alternative plan. But as she meets more people, and as the idea becomes a tangible reality, she realizes that sharing a life with a man romantically or sexually makes her want to hurl. As she writes this story, Abhi starts winning the fight against her, and she starts entertaining the idea of rebelling against a tradition that doesn't work for her. We end with her deciding to tell her mother that she doesn't want to get married and run away to live on her own.
4. A House that Whispers: Another experimental story where Gayathri writes her mother's immigration story as the story of Kamala who moved to a new house that likes to make mischief (I'm taking inspiration from the Mayasabha from the Mahabaratha for the house.) We get the story of the mother till about the halfway point where we stop at Kamala being terrified of the house and then switch to Gayathri writing a "this is what I would do differently from my mother" account of Kamala's life. We end the story with the perspective of Gayathri's mother years later when she's close to the end of her life. The mother writes an account where she stands up for herself and reclaims her story. Gayathri writes her as a weak and scared person who waits for someone to save her, but her mother focuses on the fact that she moved from a small village where she'd never seen a T.V. to this new and strange and overwhelming place with only her husband and built a life. We also get a perspective of what the Mother thinks about Gayathri, which is that she doesn't disapprove of Gayathir's life, she just wished she communicated more so the mother could help her when she could.
5. Daughter Trees: A story about Gayathri's loss of touch with her culture through the motif of a plant that is tethered to it. after this point, the mother dies.
6. Venemous Waters: Gayathri visits her extended family in India after her mother's death in order to reconnect with her roots. She meets her niece, who constantly buggs her for stories, and is so invested in the fact that Gayathri is not married. After a few stories and longing looks for a girl, Gayathri realizes that her niece is queer. She tells her the story of a lesbian couple and makes sure that in this world, the thing the characters are struggling with is not the fact that they are queer, but that they are in love with people that the family doesn't approve of. The Niece also really likes the story of Krishna so Gayathri also draws inspiration from one of the stories for that. Throughout the story, the niece comes to accept herself and Gayathri shares her story of exploring her gender and sexuality with her. The story ends with the niece coming out to the family
7. We don't have a title for this one either: Follows the aftermath of the niece coming out. Gayathri is exploring the dynamic of the family with herself and her niece being outsiders. Gayathri because she never married and is thinking about possibly adopting a child, and the niece because she is a lesbian. She explores this confusing mess of things through a story following the characters of Nirmala(a woman whose husband just left her because she couldn't conceive--however a month after she left, she found out she was pregnant), and Kana(who wants to marry Vayushi but her parents don't approve of it). In the story the two bond over their struggles but come to different outcomes: Nirmala conforms to the family and maintains a relationship with them, and Kana leaves the family.
8.
9.
I haven't figured out 8 and 9 yet, but there definitely needs to be at least two more stories. I need a story exploring how the extended family and niece situation gets resolved, and one where Gayathi is much older and back in the US and thinks about her legasy. It would be really nice if one of them was a wedding, maybe the reading of her niece? who knows! I also wonder if I need a story between 4 and 5. But I guess that's the convenience of this novel. they're self contained chapters, so I can write them in any order. It's pretty great!
Anyways, that was a longer post than expected, but I finally know where this is going. I wish accounting didn't suck so I could work of this all day, but here we are,,,,
Writing Day 7: June 13
but I compiled my written stories into a document to see how much I have. Apparently, it's 10k, which is less than I was expecting, but I think I have a lot more basically there that just needs to be organized. this week will be a slower week, but hopefully starting next week (when accounting is over) we'll get to writing a lot more. I'm excited to work on this thing. I just need time.
Day 8: June 16th
I wrote technically for an hour, but the whole session consisted of me getting overwhelmed and staring at the screen.
Day 9: June 17th
So today I decided I was going to do the most self-indulgent free-write I could, which is to literally write something that I would never use for a story. I miss writing things for the heck of writing things. Writing bad things but enjoying the process anyways. so here's what I ended up doing.
1.
The two of them were not supposed to be in a room together. And they certainly couldn’t be caught.
2.
“What are you doing here.”
“I live here. I should be asking you that.”
“Right. Like I’m supposed to believe that You have a room in the castle. Spill it. You were robbing the prince weren’t you.”
“What’s your problem? Just, please leave.”
A Knock sounded at the door.
3. The woman with rich mahogany skin answered, not taking her eyes off the other woman in the room. “Yeah,” she said. “Everyone’s looking for you,” said a voice outside the door. “Why aren’t you at the ball yet.” “Still fixing my hair, sorry.” “Well, let me know if you want me to send someone over,” the voice outside said. They heard the footsteps walk away, not before a mutter of “I told her to get help with the dress.” 4. The other woman in the room, one with almond skin, noticed the silver dress that donned the woman in front of her. The light that reflected off its jewels made her dark skin glow. Her hair, in braids tied on the crown of her scalp, was perfectly in place, and her face shimmered. Her lips were painted rouge. The almond-skinned woman cleared her throat. “So you really do live here?” “Yeah. now why are you here?” “But how? After what happened I thought after what happened…” The woman across from her scoffed. “Someone decided to leave without a trace. It’s easy to pretend something never happened if half of it went missing.” “They just ignored it? I thought--” A bang at the door stopped her mid-sentence. 5. At the sound, her companion’s face paled. The woman in the silver dress didn’t want her here, but she knew when her companion was scared. Not very many things scared her. The mahogany-skinned woman sighed. “I’m coming,” She called to the door. “Just a minute.” A guard’s voice sounded back. “We’re searching every room. Someone stole the map.” She glanced at the almond-skinned woman. “Please,” she mouthed.” “Well, she’s not here.” “It’s protocol ma’am. We have to check.” “Then come back later.” “It’ll be quick, we just--” “Listen, if I have one more guard walk in on me undressed, I will bring this to court.” “It’s not--” “I will not have another person come in just to--” “We’ll come back.” The guard walked away. The woman in silver turned to her companion. She wasn’t happy to see her, but she wasn’t going to let her be caught either. “So do you want to tell me what’s going on?”
I think I did succeed in writing the worst thing ever and having fun with it. Yes it's not something I'd ever use, but it got me typing again and that means we're no longer scared of the blank page. At least for now.
Day 10: June 20th
Not much writing this week. did a bit of brainstorming, and READ LIKE SEVEN BOOKS BECAUSE I WENT INSANE but I did not write. But hopefully next week I can get back into the swing of things. I'm also considering doing nanowrimo again. we'll see. Here's my bit of brainstorming for the pirate story thing.
Chapter 3:
Arun decides that his best course of action is to go to the harbor and try to find someone to take him to the middle of the ocean. He also doesn’t have any money. So he finds this fisherman and tries to convince him to give him a fishing job. Note, Arun does not know how to fish. The fisherman is like NO! I will not! The Fisherman, annoyed, asked him who his parents are and Arun begrudgingly told him. The fisherman thinks for a second after hearing the names, and then he asks Arun if he’s sure his parents know. Arun’s like “Yeah totally!” and then the fisherman’s like okay fine, you can come fishing with me and i’ll pay you. Little does he know Arun just wants the boat.
Chapter 4: When a boy learns to Fish
(Depending on pacing, might combine with the last chapter) The fisherman is soo boring. When they finally get in the water and the man figures out that Arun has no idea how to fish, he’s annoyed. He’s so desperately trying to teach him, but Arun is just trying to get him to take him deeper into the ocean. The fisherman keeps saying no because storm clouds are forming, and he doesn’t want to die. Finally, after hours of bickering, the fisherman is like “If you’re desperate to go into the ocean so bad, just ask your parents.” and Arun’s like “What? What would my parents know! They’re artisans.” and before anyone could answer a wave knocks the boat, and a pirate ship looms over the horizon
I'm hoping to get more writing done this upcoming week. We shall see. We shall see....
Cheers,
Nitya