The writing retreat is being held at my friend’s home in Kaua’i, and yes, I am tremendously grateful for a chance to be warm again. I’m getting old enough that the relentless chill of a Midwest winter does wear me down, even if climate change means they’re not nearly as bad as they used to be. And look, albatross! Alex’s home is an albatross nesting site.
Kavi (my beach baby) is VERY jealous that she didn’t get to come along, and I feel bad, but she has school, and also, we’re all supposedly here to write, not lounge on the beach. She doesn’t really write, but she does sometimes make art — maybe I can bring her with me to make art sometime in the future. All the schedules will change once she’s done with high school…
Got in after a long travel day, having written some on the plane (YAY!), and also having done some reading, a little knitting (trying a new project, a little crocheted top for myself), and catching up on the last three episodes of Severance. So weird, so good. It’s making me think about story structure, and how sometimes the writers seem to be taking just a completely random left turn, but they usually do bring it back to weave into the whole.
Kudos to the actors too — everyone on the show is meant to be in a state of barely suppressed utter panic and terror much of the time, and yet often moving like automatons, and they convey that really effectively. The moments when they’re allowed to drop the mask and just be people are almost shocking by contrast. I’m waiting to see where the show ends up, but I wouldn’t be surprised if you could end up writing some trenchant analyses comparing it to conditions under slavery.
Managed to stay awake until almost 10 last night (2 a.m. Chicago time), chatting with Alex and his friends. Then slept 9 solid hours, woke up slowly, having tea now, and getting ready to dive into writing. I’m figuring I try to get another scene down, then breakfast and check in with people, then hopefully 4-6 solid hours of writing today? That would be amazing. We’ll see.
Bit from yesterday’s plane writing, obv. very rough-drafty. Too many commas! This bit reads as somewhat YA, but it’s prologue to the main story, and takes place some years earlier. Not sure if I’ll keep it as an actual prologue — might just split it off into a short story on its own. Or maybe it’s just pre-writing, helping me figure out my characters. We’ll see.
It was Roshan’s idea. Dhara clung to that, in the aftermath, amidst all the grief and guilt and unwanted glory. He had suggested not just riding, but racing, the wind in their faces serving to relieve, a little, the heat of midday in the highlands, in the king’s city. How often she’d wished they lived closer to the island’s coast, where ocean breezes moderated the blazing heat that set sweat dripping down her spine, soaking through her sari blouse. Dhara knew she no longer looked like a princess ought, or so her mother would say, if she were caught.
If it were up to her mother, Dhara would sit demurely by a servant, allowing herself to be fanned. Sit in one of the high rooms of the palace, where fretwork ivory formed panels that screened them from common view, but allowed the breezes in. But her father thought all his children should learn to ride, to fight, and so Dhara had trained with her big brother, her younger siblings; at fourteen, she could outride all of them. She knew that. Knew that she was a better rider than Roshan. She should have said no.
“Dhara, come on! Are you scared?”
How could she say no to that?
