Inhabiting oneself while writing
And other updates
The process for draft 5 of my novel is no easier than the previous drafts were. I continue to be in that foggy place that Anne Lammott calls driving with the headlights on at night. I can see a few feet ahead and I drive with a mental map of the larger journey floating in a thought bubble.
I am reading fantasy in order to stay in the zone for longer periods of time, since work and life interrupt me everyday. I live every minute with a feeling of having stepped out on my novel. I am not inhabiting myself in the simplest sense of the word.
In less bleak news
I am happy to announce that I’ve joined the fiction team of The Bombay Literary Magazine.
I have had a couple of stories published.
The first, and most elevating, was the Between Worlds: IF Anthology of new SFF, Vol 1 by Westland. It was accompanied by a feature in Scroll.in. You can read an excerpt for free here.
The second story is very close to my heart. Some stories are written purely for feeling, not to provoke thought or deliver a message. They simply exist. God Photo for Ramiah’s House, published in Mean Pepper Vine, is one of them. It was rejected many times. If Ramiah were real, he would have sat with me through those months as I mourned the lack of love for it.
Conversations
I was invited to a sweet conversation with fellow Between Worlds writer Anushree Nande. Stoked because this is my first Substack collab.
Stories I returned to
In these six months I have revisited a few short stories multiple times. They’re not soft or sweet, and yet they perform the equivalent of what thumb-sucking offers a child: a sense of being looped in and complete.
The Water that Falls on you from Nowhere by John Chu
Signs and Wonders by Timna Fibert
Spar by Kij Johnson
I hope you enjoy reading them too.
Just visiting and catching up to your writing ✨💖✨