The beginning of a novel is always pretty easy for me. In fact, I merely have to open a word document and start typing and soon things fall in place. The difficult part is maintaining that momentum and continuing to write just as you wrote the first chapter or even the first line of the novel.
I found that writing a novel when I had a full time job was very difficult. Not only was I tired at the end of the day, but since I usually worked from home, work never seemed to get over. When it did get over, I didn’t want to look at the computer until the next day or next several days. Also, working as a content writer zapped my creative energies ina a way that didn’t leave me with much fodder for my writing. That didn’t stop me from starting five different writing projects in 2008 or 2009. When I finally quit, I was free to go back to them and start working on anyone of them.
What I chose was probably one of the projects I’d started on a whim when my sister was in college. The idea to write about a film making class was inspired from there and that was how Blinkers Off came about. I’d written three chapters and then, that’s it. I didn’t know what to do with it. I got back to writing it and amazingly, the characters started fleshing out and the story began to fall in place, almost as though on its own.
My only other experience of writing a full length novel was with Kite Strings and that was not a very accurate standard to measure my progress. This was because I wrote Kite Strings in spurts, whenever I felt like it and it took almost two years to finish it. With Blinkers Off, I didn’t have that kind of patience and I was also pretty much jobless, so I attacked it with a vengeance and finished it in less than three months.
When three quarters of the book was over, I was able to see the ending. That was my a-ha moment and it was spectacular. Most of my life last year revolved around ferrying the kids to and from school and tuition on my Scooty and the plot usually played out in my head when I was riding the bike. On one such ride, the ending just came to my head. The very last sentence actually. And I was happy because now I just had to lead the book till that end. Then I remembered that something similar had happened with Kite Strings but I had been unable to pinpoint it because it took so long to write.
Nevertheless, with this third book that I am writing, the ending has been playing around in my head for a few days but it’s still not clear. For some reason, I’m not enjoying writing this book as much as I enjoyed writing Blinkers Off. For one, I’ve stepped out of my milieu and comfort zone and I’m writing a book about four women of different backgrounds. And the moment I stop enjoying something, it becomes work. But I cannot not finish this book now. Not when I have completed writing 50 chapters and all of 70,000 words of it. Maybe some good will come of it, but who knows? What I have learnt now is that the time for writing on a whim is over.
I’ve already got the idea for the next book planned out and I wrote two chapters of it, just so I don’t lose track of what I wanted from it. I usually do not like to plot my books beforehand and I let my impulse rule me. But what I’m going to do now is to stop and just think about how it will possibly end. Of course, the ending can change from what I originally might have thought and that’s the beauty of writing a book. You’re free to do whatever you want with it. And the feeling of seeing the ending appear before me, almost magically, is amazing. Yes, I can actually visualise the ending, the setting and who will be there. For instance, somewhere around the middle of writing Kite Strings I knew how it would end. I could actually see what Mehnaz would be doing. So also with Blinkers Off. The scene was so exciting that I couldn’t wait to bring the book to its natural conclusion.
With my current book, the haze is just beginning to clear and I’m able to see who will be there and what she will say. What I need to see is if it all fits in eventually. Wish me luck!
It’s nearly the end of the year and finally I’ve managed to get some time to update everyone about what’s happening with me. This year has been marvelous and an eye opener of sorts for me. I quit my job at the very beginning of this year, on Jan 1st to be precise and I was a bit apprehensive about how things would turn out for me. Now at the end of it, I can comfortably say that they turned out very well indeed.
After a few days of dallying and watching TV, I opened the folder that contained my halfhearted attempts at fiction which I had begun but never really thought about seriously because of the time that my job took up. Amongst all the different projects there, one appealed to me suddenly. It was the story of a girl who wanted to become a screenplay writer and I had written only three chapters and left it hanging there. I picked it up and continued with the story from there and amazingly enough it all started coming together. By the end of March, Blinkers Off was ready. To say that I was amazed was an understatement. Moreover, I couldn’t imagine how exhausting it had all been. I wanted to sleep continuously for days at a stretch, a feat that was impossible as summer vacations for my kids had begun and there were no plans in place to keep them suitable occupied.
There followed two months of madness where I tried to control the brats by enrolling the older one in badminton classes and taking the younger one to watch. I can safely say that it wasn’t a summer vacation that I enjoyed. Towards the end of the summer vacation, we went to Hyderabad to attend a wedding and on the way back our van met with an accident. Thankfully all of us were spared with minor bruises except for an aunt who broke her wrist. The incident has almost traumatised me from traveling on the highway and I can still see the way the van overturned and rolled around. It’s indeed all thanks to Allah that he saved all of us that day.
When we came back, my friend Judy and I also rallied around with other fellow bloggers to start SPAM and it occupied quite a lot of our time. Judy also finished writing her novel and we were both now jobless writers looking for publishers for our books. I can say that it helped having someone else in on the journey. We exchanged notes about how difficult it was getting a good publisher (even for me who’s already published a novel – Kite Strings) and boosted each other’s morale constantly. Some other people I must mention who helped me greatly by offering peer reviews with Blinkers Off were Ayesha, Revs, Biji and my sister Sidra. I can’t tell you guys how much you helped me by offering your opinions about the way the book was shaping up!
On the personal front, things had taken an amazing turn. My baby sis was getting ready to get married! Her wedding was fixed for December and my mom, me and sis had started shopping and doing lots of other almost blah stuff, but it was made enjoyable because of all the bling in it! Nevertheless, it was a busy time for us, getting cards ready, running between the tailor and shopping for shoes! (Yum!)
Also, my friend Ayesha had a baby boy in August! I can’t explain how happy I felt when it happened and I’m SO thrilled for her and her sweet little family. Isiah (whom I call Izzu because I feel Isiah is such an adult name) is an adorable little fella and I can’t wait for him to grow up so he can join the brat pack.
Amid all this, my book got accepted at a reputed publishing house and it seemed as though Allah was answering all my prayers. On November 8th however, my grandfather who was fondly known to everyone as Papaji passed away all of a sudden. He died in his sleep and the way in which it happened shook up my mother badly as he’d been living with her for the past 11 years since my grandmother passed away. It’s taken us quite some time to get over the shock of it all.
Meanwhile, I started work on my third novel and am on the verge of completing it, if only I can sit down and write it in peace. But my sister got married just last week, and a day later my older son fell off from the scooter with his father, hurt his leg and has got a cast on it now. So all my time has been devoted to running around after him and making sure he doesn’t hurt that leg any further. As a result, I doubt I’ll be able to finish the book before the year ends.
Judy’s novel has also been accepted by a publisher and I’m really happy for her. She’s an amazing writer who deserves all the recognition and fame that she will get. I keep telling her that when she’s famous, I’ll tell her ‘I told you so’.
This year has been simply amazing, filled with hundreds of events, some that made me really ecstatic and some that have been so tragic, that I can hardly believe it. So much has happened in the world outside too, but I think I don’t have to recap that for everyone. Looking back on this year, I can only be thankful to Allah for showering me with his mercy and blessing and giving me the one talent without which my life wouldn’t have been the same. Writing.
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