Jack With His Head In The Clouds

Eileen pulls the last haunch of moose out of the freezer and hands it to Jack.
"Is this from the cow you shot in the garden last year?" He asks, sagging under the weight.
Eileen nods. "Take it to Auntie. She'll give you two bags of flour and an extra turkey she ordered from town. Oh, and eggs. Make sure she doesn’t forget the eggs."

"Pay attention and be careful!" Eileen calls out as Jack idles the skiff out of the tiny cove. He is a good son, but Eileen worries about him. His head is always in the clouds.

"What took you so long?" Eileen asks when Jack returns at dusk. She’s been pacing the beach for an hour, watching for his return.
"Sorry Ma, I met a man from the city. He asked me where the good fishing is round these parts."
"Where’s the food from Auntie?" Eileen wonders, her heart sinking as she scans the empty skiff.
"I never got as far as Auntie's house. I was talking to the man from the city and lost track of time. I’m sorry I’m so late," Jack leans down to kiss his mother's cheek.
"Where is the haunch of moose?"
"Harold, that’s the fellow I met, he told me he’s never eaten moose meat before and wanted to try it. I traded the haunch for these," Jack says, and grins, as he pulls a blue canvas sack out of his coat pocket and hands it to Eileen.
Eileen loosens the drawstring and peers inside the bag. It smells like good coffee, but the beans sparkle. What will the marketers think of next?

“Isn’t it grand?” Jack asks, bouncing on the balls of his feet.
"It's a bag of beans, Jack. I'm very disappointed."
"But they're magic beans! Harold said if we plant them, they'll grow as tall as trees in a single night!"

Eileen shakes her head. “You can’t grow coffee in Alaska.”

Eileen and Jack eat a lot of bear stew that spring, but the coffee almost makes up for it. The coffee, Eileen decides, is the most delicious she’s ever had.

Not Walden

My first two months in Juneau were idyllic. Fresh from the steel and concrete landscape of my home city, I was intoxicated with the sheer quantity of nature. I’d expected mountains, I’d expected ocean, and I’d expected forest, but there was no way I could have been prepared for the vastness and immediacy of all three. Even when I leaned against the marble columns at the entrance of the state capital building, I was within easy walking distance of wilderness. Mother Nature loomed over me and I reveled in her intimate proximity.

In mid-April, within days of arriving, I managed to rent a one-room log cabin with a curtained bathroom and a sleeping loft. Set alongside a picturesque stream and up against the green-drenched forest, the cabin seemed to embody every rustic daydream of my youth. I imagined myself as a modern day Thoreau, and the stream as my Walden Pond.

I spent the next five weeks learning how to keep a fire burning in the cast iron wood stove that heated the cabin. In between whispered curses, shivering, and repeated jostling of the smoldering firewood, I tapped out the entire first draft of my book. Words flowed out of my fingers and onto the screen of my laptop with an alacrity they’d never shown in a better heated, more civilized environment. The novelty of my situation set free a downpour of words that mirrored the heavy showers of the temperate rainforest outside.  

By late May, the pile of firewood on the porch had begun to dry out and I was finally getting the hang of making fire. Rain gave way to several weeks of sunshine and I put my manuscript aside in favor of adventuring with friends. I was, after all, in paradise and there were ice fields and glaciers, fjords, hidden bays, and beaches. When the rain returned, more of a drizzle than a downpour, I had blisters on top of blisters from the new set of boots I’d broken in. I was weary from too many late night bonfires, too much companionship, and too many miles of hiking. I looked forward to the sedentary task of revising my manuscript, and to the solitude of the cabin, with a giddy sense of optimism.

It took less than a morning of revision to squelch my giddiness and after two days, my optimism hung in tattered shreds. Where had all my lovely words gone? Where were the clever turns of phrase, the layers of symbolism, the rich characters that I’d rejoiced in? They were gone and what remained were only hollow echoes. My disappointment tasted sour, and vaguely rotten, on the back of my tongue. In the long days that followed, I pored over my manuscript, tweaking and shifting phrases and sentences until my head spun, but that vague rotten flavor only grew stronger.

I was a week into revisions when an absent-minded stroll down to the stream beside my cabin revealed that it wasn’t disappointment I’d been tasting all along, but in fact, the rank stench of rotting fish. Several cadaverous salmon bodies littered the stream bank, half-eaten and covered in buzzing horseflies. The sight of empty eye-sockets and putrefying fish flesh sent me stumbling and retching back to the cabin where I brewed a cup of peppermint tea. While helpful in settling my stomach, the tea did nothing to alleviate the stink. Once I was aware of the source, I couldn’t stop smelling it. I couldn’t stop smelling it, and I couldn’t stop thinking about it.

Over the next few days, I stopped working on my manuscript. Instead, I filled the cabin with sweet-scented candles, the flames flickering day and night. I brewed and drank cup after cup of peppermint tea, and I smeared essential oil of clove beneath my nostrils, but nothing blocked out the rancid odor. Nothing washed away the sensation of having that smell somehow lodged inside of me, lingering in my nose and throat. Instead, the stink seemed to thicken and linger, mixing with the sweet scents I tried to combat it with, melding with them until peppermint, clove, and candle wax were inextricably linked, in my mind, with the smell of decay and death.  

I watched from my cabin window as more and more salmon arrived, half-rotten but still swimming, still flapping, still struggling up the shallow stream. I watched them strand themselves in shallow eddies, thrashing against the rocky stream bed where they slowly suffocated. I assumed, of course, that this bizarre incursion of ocean-going fish, and their subsequent deaths, was a sign of something dire. Perhaps the fish were lost, their brains damaged by too much pollution. Or, maybe they were confused by the sonar pings of too many ships. There could be some enormous predator just off shore, driving the terrified fish up stream. By the time I worked up the courage to call one of my new friends, I was more than halfway convinced that I was witnessing a sign of end times.

My worried phone call was met with laughter and a brief explanation of the reproductive cycle of salmon. The salmon were spawning, laying and fertilizing eggs right there, outside my cabin. No, the adult fish couldn’t be saved. No, there was nothing that could be done about the smell. No, there was nobody I could call to come clean up the mess. The dead salmon were an important part of the environmental niche. Wild animals and the flow of the stream itself would take care of the clean-up before winter began. Wild animals? Oh, you know, otter, mink, eagles, ravens, and bears. Bears? Yes, bears. My friend instructed me to keep my distance from the bears, to avoid getting between any cubs and their mama, and to stop trying to cover up the smell of decomposing fish. I was wasting my time with candles and essential oils. It would only get worse before it got better.

I hung up the phone feeling both relieved, and much more worried. On one hand, the dying fish, while macabre, were perfectly normal and natural. On the other hand…bears. Sure, I’d wanted to see bears in Alaska, but I wanted to see them from far away. I wanted to see them from a boat, or a plane, or a car. I did not want to see them from my home.

As though the bears had overheard my phone call, I saw the first two late that very evening as dusk settled over the cabin. In the dim light, the two animals were little more than silhouettes. I watched them lumber gracefully along the stream for at least two minutes before retreating to the sleeping loft where I huddled, trembling, under my blankets.

As my friend had predicted, the smell of rotting fish grew stronger as the days progressed. I also began seeing bears alongside the stream each day. I became more and more isolated, too afraid to make the short walk from the front door to my car when there were bears nearby, and too distracted by the stink and by my fear to concentrate on revising my manuscript. Besides, I rationalized; there was no point in revising something I loathed.

I finally reached my breaking point in July. I’d been putting off leaving the house to go grocery shopping and was down to crackers and a jar of sweet pickles. I spent all morning peeking out my windows and waiting for the right moment to make my exit. Finally, in the mid-afternoon, there was a break in the bear activity. I checked every window twice. Not a bear to be seen. I grabbed my keys and wallet, opened the door, prepared to run the fifty feet to my car, and came to dead stop. There, on the porch, was a porcupine the size of Shetland sheepdog! The creature faced me, blocking my escape route, and with a gleam in its shiny black eyes it began to hum the melody to “Teddy Bears’ Picnic”. With slow deliberation, the porcupine waddled across the porch, down the steps, and into the nearby brush, still humming. I turned on my heel, went back inside, piled my clothes and laptop into my suitcase and walked out of the cabin by the stream, never to return. That place was not Walden, and I was not Thoreau. 

Broken Glass

For being a person so filled with strong opinions, I find blogging to be surprisingly challenging. In person, I'm happy to yap on about my radical and idealistic political views, how I think I could solve everything if I were Queen Of The Universe, and the best way to train your dog. There's something about the permanency and visibility of a blog post, though, that leaves me feeling hesitant and shy, except about the things I am most certain of. Besides, my deepest purpose in having a blog isn't about airing my numerous opinions, it's about connecting with people who are interested in my writing. Mostly, my fiction writing. In light of that purpose, I'm restarting this blog and am happy to announce that, at least for the foreseeable future, I'll be posting short FICTION each Friday! If you like what you read here, check back every week, and keep an eye out for information about my collection of very short fiction, A Flash Of Genies, which I'll be releasing later this spring.

As always, I welcome your comments and hope you'll check out the other blog tabs (above) to learn more about me, my books, and even my awesome webpage!

Broken Glass

It was the sound of the eggshells as she dropped them into the kitchen sink that irritated Celeste. There were three dozen hard-boiled eggs and each fragment that she peeled away from a glossy white oval landed in the stainless steel basin like a shard of glass.

Celeste had never considered the possibility that Tara would leave her. They were twins. Soul mates. Inseparable.

Celeste and Tara shared an apartment, clothes, even friends. They shared everything, yet her sister hadn’t bothered to mention that she had a boyfriend. Two weeks ago when Tara and Miguel went to Vegas for the weekend, Tara hadn’t bothered to tell Celeste that she planned to return on Monday as someone’s wife. Until she’d seen the gold band on Tara’s finger, Celeste hadn’t even known Miguel existed. Good morning, Celeste. You have a brother-in-law. Who could blame her for smashing the windows out of Tara’s car? She was surprised and hurt, after all.

Deviled eggs were always good picnic food. Celeste was going to miss Tara, but that didn’t keep her from wanting the reception to be perfect. It was informal and held on short notice, but they were expecting a big crowd. People would mingle and exclaim over the spread. They’d ask if it was catered and their eyes would widen in appreciation when they learned Celeste had done it all single-handedly. They would gasp in astonishment when they saw the elegant three-tiered cake Celeste had made. Then, as everyone stuffed their greedy mouths with food, Tara would announce that she was moving with Miguel to Portugal.

Celeste loaded the last of the food into her car. She wedged her suitcase behind the passenger’s seat and then double-checked that the kitchen mallet was tucked safely in her purse. It was, and she zipped up her bag with a satisfied smile. Who would have predicted that a tool meant for tenderizing meat would turn out to be so handy? Her stomach fluttered in anticipation. Yes, she decided, she was going to like Portugal very much.

Observing & Writing Dialog With Mohana Rajakumar

Please meet Mohana Rajakumar, this week’s featured author!

Mohanalakshmi Rajakumar is a South Asian American who has lived in Qatar since 2005. Moving to the Arabian Desert was fortuitous in many ways since this is where she met her husband, had a baby, and made the transition from writing as a hobby to a full time passion.  She has since published seven e-books including a mom-ior for first time mothers, Mommy But Still Me, a guide for aspiring writers, So You Want to Sell a Million Copies, a short story collection, Coloured and Other Stories, and a novel about women’s friendships, Saving Peace.

Her recent books have focused on various aspects of life in Qatar. From Dunes to Dior, named as a Best Indie book in 2013, is a collection of essays related to her experiences as a female South Asian American living in the Arabian Gulf. Love Comes Later was the winner of the Best Indie Book Award for Romance in 2013 and is a literary romance set in Qatar and London. The Dohmestics is an inside look into compound life, the day to day dynamics between housemaids and their employers.

After she joined the e-book revolution, Mohana dreams in plotlines. Learn more about her work on her website at www.mohanalakshmi.com or follow her latest on Twitter: @moha_doha.

First, please tell us a bit about what you write and why dialog is important in your work.

People exist in communities and a large part of this includes talking: whether arguing, agreeing, or loving. You can’t have good writing without dialogue because we need to know how these character feel about each other without being told.

Listening is an integral piece of "people watching". Do you "people listen" automatically, or do you make a deliberate effort?

I need to make more of an effort to listen; I’m a notorious interrupter, especially when I’m excited about what people are saying (or angered). Interrupting is really rude so I’m going to try my best to stop!

Humans exchange a lot of information paraverbally, that is, through intonation, pacing/rhythm, volume, and enunciation. What paraverbal cues are you most sensitive or tuned into as an author, an observer, and a participant?

Volume is big for me; if I hear an increase in volume, “I get my back up” as the saying goes or I go on offense. It’s a trigger and I can’t help it. Now with two young kids, I work at lowering my voice when I want to make a point.

Do you enjoy writing dialog? Is there anything about writing dialog that you find challenging?

There’s that one moment between two characters – particularly in a budding romance – that can have aha! feeling that is magical. Trying to find it though, can be very, very difficult.

What have you learned about yourself and your relationships by observing real life & fictional dialog?

We don’t speak in speeches; we interrupt, agree, make assuring or disapproving noises. Human communication is full of little notes that move it forward and back; a constant dynamic, flexible process.

Do you have any characters with catchphrases or verbal habits? What are they? How do these personal quirks add depth to your characters?

In Love Comes Later, one of the main characters, Sangita is known for her quick wit and how rapidly she replies. This is characteristic of her thirst for life and overall high energy level.

Do your characters ever interrupt, cross-talk or change the subject? Do you use communication interference in your dialog? Why/Why not?

All. The. Time. I find the “---“ dash difficult as a reader sometimes but I know it’s an essential part of writing to simulate real communication.

Please share with us a dialog gem that you've recently overheard or participated in. What do you think makes this dialog interesting?

I often find it difficult to give feedback in a neutral way and have been working on this skill (without being angry or raising my voice). So this victory last week was really exciting because I asserted a boundary without being mean.

Me: “I asked you not to do that.”

Him: Laugh

Me: “That was the second time.”

Him: “Oh, sorry.”

It’s amazing how challenging this skill can be to practice. Kudos to you!

Please share with us a dialog gem from your own writing. (If published, please share the title & link to purchase site.) What do you think makes this dialog interesting?

The following is from a scene where Sangita and Abdulla are arguing about his fiancé being on a secret trip to India with Ravi, Sangita’s brother.

Sangita straightens herself and comes as close as she can to staring down someone still half a head taller than she is.

“He is a man with principles,” she says.

Abdulla shakes his head.

“Hind is engaged—”

“That didn’t stop him from running off with her!”

Sangita sags against the countertop. “They went as friends,” she mumbles. His eyes fly up in what is quickly becoming a standard reaction.

“This very contradiction has plagued me for so many nights since Hind and Ravi left ten days ago…” she trails off at his stunned look.

He takes another gulp of coffee, breathes, and waves a hand, indicating that she should continue.

“Finals, graduation paperwork, and finding a job… I’ve had no time to think about this. I had to put my doubts away. So the two people I love the most in the world are together. What can be bad about that?”

Is there anything else about observing and writing dialog that you’d like to add?

Someone is attributed with having said, “Listen twice as much as you speak.” Sound advice – impossible to implement! – but oh, so essential for a writer.

Author Amazon Page: http://www.amazon.com/Mohanalakshmi-Rajakumar/e/B002PMRI1U
Author website: http://www.mohanalakshmi.com

Twitter: https://twitter.com/@moha_doha
Facebook: www.facebook.com/themohadoha

Youtube:www.youtube.com/themohadoha

Pinterest:www.pinterest.com/mohadoha

Well, folks, this marks the last week of the Observing & Writing Dialog series! It has been a tremendous pleasure learning from each author I’ve interviewed and I am grateful to all each of you who participated, read and/or commented on my blog and elsewhere.

I had a lot of fun organizing this series and it’s been a catalyst for me to examine my own use of dialog in writing and in daily life. In fact, this was such an enjoyable endeavor, I’m considering one or more follow-up interview series about other elements of writing.

Would you like to read more interviews with authors about their writing?

Are you an author interested in being interviewed about your writing? Do you have topic suggestions for a follow-up series?

Please let me know! Comment, tweet, e-mail or send me your thoughts via mental telepathy*!

*Receiving  telepathic messages only during the month of April because I’m an April Fool!