Twenty things I’ve learned doing NaNoWriMo

1. It is very easy to procrastinate about novel writing. I guess that’s why we need Nanowrimo.
2. I have a huge number of experiences/people/places to draw on as source material. The challenge is to resist putting them all in at once, or to avoid recreating the person in their entirety.
3. I find it easier to write late at night, oddly in front of a TV cooking show or old repeats of “Whose Line Is It Anyway?” Or at one am when everything is quiet, and even the cat’s are asleep.
4. Novels require a lot of research. I’ve put most of that off till after Nanowrimo. No-one said the Nano novel has to be factually accurate. So I’ll correct for facts later. When I add the humour. Which brings me to …
5. I’m not funny. That’s not a new discovery. It’s just confirmation really.
6. I don’t enjoy writing dialogue. I’m crap at it. But it gets easier. Or it gets easier to ignore the fact that it’s crap. I’ll let my readers decide. When I’ve decided who my first “readers” will be. I’ve promised my husband. But then, I’ve been known to break my promises.
7. Plot really does happen. When you write, something has to happen. It may as well be plot.
8. Sleeping on a plot problem brings inspiration over night.
9. Time away from the novel is as important as time working on it.
10. Writing about annoying and/or depressing people is annoying and/or depressing. I don’t know how novelists cope when their novels are about doom and gloom, or about characters you just know are never going to get a break. I feel sick in my stomach when I read these. I hate to think how it feels to write about them.
11. I’ve become surprisingly attached to my characters and their situations. I feel what they feel, which can become a bit of a problem.
12. It has been approximately 30 years since I’ve written fiction. My life has involved writing for business, and my writing for fun has been experience-based. I’ve never had or taken the time for fiction writing. Letting my imagination loose has been a little scary at first.
13. Writing a novel is actually a lot of fun. You know the feeling when you’re reading a book and can’t wait to get back to it? That’s how I feel about writing the novel. (When I’m not procrastinating of course).
14. Not many Nanowrimo novels will be any good, if the “favourite lines” forum is any judge of quality. But then, Nanowrimo is all about quantity, not quality.
15. 50,000 words isn’t that much if things happen to the characters.
16. 50,000 words isn’t enough for my novel. So I’m still working on it. I want to see what happens.
17. I’ve written more words on Nanowrimo in under four weeks than I have on my blog in a year.
18. In a novel, I’m whoever I want to be. And I’m always thin.
19. Writing a novel is actually quite easy.
20. Writing a good novel is not.

A phone call

“Hello, your name, please?”

Shocked at the abrupt request, I stammered my name.

“Hello, Mali,” the man said, his demeanour suddenly welcoming and friendly. “What can I do for you today?”

My annual levy for a compulsory government accident health scheme is due this week. I remember getting the bill. I remember looking at it, noting the amount and the date due (27 November), I remember bringing the bill upstairs, into my office, and putting it down, thinking, “that will be easy to find when I pay it in a few weeks.”

If only that were true. The morning was spent frantically hunting for the bill. Not in the pile of documents on the stairs. Not on my desk. Not by the printer. Not in the ACC file. Not in the “To be paid” drawer. Gulp. Sinking of stomach. Shame at the state of my office. Shame at my lack of discipline. Shame.

So, sheepishly, I explained my situation. A few simple questions, and a lot of jokes about putting things where we can find them, whether I would win the free Christmas card prize for best excuse, whether “I lost it” even qualified as an excuse, let alone a good one. Very soon I had all the details I needed to pay the bill via internet banking.

“But don’t panic,” he said, cheerfully. “You have a thirty day grace period, which gives you until after Christmas. You won’t even get any penalties till well into January. Plenty of time!”

“You can come out of the corner now,” he laughed, as I rang off gratefully.

How to turn a crappy day into a decent one. Just be nice. Take a lesson from the ACC man.

White Out

On Saturday night, I went to my first live soccer/football match. It was a World Cup qualifier match between NZ and Bahrain, two of the world’s smaller countries. If NZ won, they would go to South Africa for the World Cup. The only other time we have been was Spain 1982. I am old enough to remember that. Most of the team playing were not.

NZers were basically brought up on rugby: where men are stoic, and don’t wear padding, where players are more likely to play through an injury than fake one (a hero, Buck Shelford, famously played on during a rugby test after suffering a torn scrotum), where (when I was growing up at least – sadly no longer) it wasn’t “done” to celebrate scoring (that was considered to be crass). So soccer, with its wild celebrations and hugging, and its blatant faking of injuries, has been in many ways anathema to our culture.

But times they are a-changing. Increasingly, rugby players and crowds are more emotional. We have watched too many American movies not to know how to whoop and cheer and whistle now. Or perhaps, we have too many British (in particular) immigrants who have brought the soccer culture of obsessive fans to our shores. After all, we had been invited to the rugby by immigrant Manchester U and Chelsea fans. They warned us that the crowd would not be staid at a football match, but loud, exuberant, and above all, passionate.

Still, and I don’t know if this is normal at football matches worldwide, every time a Bahrain player fell over and tried to milk a penalty or free kick by rolling around on the ground as if they were in agony, the crowd booed, or laughed. Personally, I felt like calling out “you poor little baby!” rather disturbingly showing my cultural conditioning, and succumbing to the power of the crowd. The first player to fall over lay on the pitch rolling around in “pain” until the free kick was awarded then, from a prone position flat on his back, arched his body and leapt to his feet in one single, cat-like, gymnastic movement. Such a clear, thumbing of the nose to the crowd and, I would think, the referee. That’s what I can’t understand about football. How do the referees fall for this? Do the players have no shame? Are they happy to present themselves as nothing but cry-babies?

Another guy went through such theatrics that the stretcher came out, he was lifted on to it and carried to the side. Ten seconds later he was off the stretcher and running back onto the field. For the rest of the game, every time he touched the ball he was booed. But each time they booed, the crowd laughed as well. I am pleased to say that, by and large, the NZ players didn’t resort to such antics. Perhaps they know our attitude towards fakes. Though to be fair, late in the second half the stretcher carried off one of the NZ players, who then promptly got off the stretcher and limped to the side, seemingly recovering rapidly!

The Bahrain supporters were directly in front of us. They were resplendent in red, even the women’s headscarves, and unrelenting in their flag-waving, singing and chanting and drum-beating. They were passionate in their support of their team. I guess anyone who travels halfway across the world to support a sports team is going to be passionate, especially coming to windy Wellington on a cool spring evening. The celebrations when they won a penalty shot were extraordinary, the men hugging and kissing in delight. The celebrations a few seconds later, when the NZ goalkeeper saved the day, saw the Bahrainis slump disconsolate in their seats, as all around them Kiwis went berserk.

New Zealand had never seen anything like it. Usually decked out in black to support our national teams, last night white was the colour. (Our rugby team is known as the All Blacks, the football team as the All Whites). I even saw one guy in a white hotel towelling robe. Innovative. And for the last 20 minutes of the game, hundreds if not thousands of bare-chested men were swirling their t-shirts around their heads, the entire stadium flickering, in encouragement and, ultimately, celebration.

As the 35,000 plus crowd swarmed out of the stadium, white and red supporters smiled and greeted each other, sleepy children were slung over their fathers’ shoulders, and strangers hugged each other.

Quality or quantity

When I write, it is mostly a stream of consciousness. Sure, I go back and edit, rearrange, correct, but usually quickly and cursorily, aimed at expressing what I want to say, and no more.

I would like to be an artist. To tease with elegant or amusing phrases, to astound, or to evoke emotions. I wish I could craft my words. I would like to sit pondering over a sentence, or to come up with some of Mrs S’s wonderful words. I would like to produce little polished gems of posts, like those on The Danforth. But I’m no poet. It seems to be my lot to work on the basis of quantity rather than quality.

This is however, currently working in my favour as I take on the task of NaNoWriMo, writing 50,000 words in November. So I hope too you will forgive me if I post less frequently here over the next few weeks.

Things I learned today about ageing

1, If you want to feel young, put a sticking plaster on your skinned knee.

2. If you want to feel old, skin your knee by falling down the stairs at the posh department store.

Seeking refuge

When I was an AFS student in Bangkok, I met a woman who had been working with refugees. She was from my home town in New Zealand, and it seemed quite extraordinary that someone else had travelled that far from home. I can’t remember how the arrangements were made, but back in 1980 it must have involved quite a lengthy process of letter-writing and waiting. What I do remember is meeting this intelligent, big-hearted woman from home, showing her around Bangkok, and hearing her tales of the children in the refugee camps who did not know how to play. Looking back, those were the children who lived through the regime of the Khmer Rouge. Looking back, I know that those children were the lucky ones.

About eleven years later, I met one of those lucky children. I was in Phnom Penh in 1991, on behalf of the New Zealand government, to make contact with the interim Cambodian regime that was operating under the auspices of the United Nations peace process. (Don’t ever tell me the UN doesn’t achieve anything! ). New Zealand had provided some of the vanguard troops and they had found a small hotel to live in. I can’t quite remember if it was owned by Dith Pran, the man whose story was told in The Killing Fields or Haing Ngor, the actor who played him. Regardless, it was a good reminder of why we were all there.

At the time, one of the leading Cambodian staffers for Prince Norodom Sihanouk’s FUNCINPEC party was a New Zealand citizen, formerly a refugee. He had been a refugee in 1980, when I was an exchange student in Bangkok. Sereyvuth was around my age, and had spent about a year in the camps on the border where Ruth worked, before he was resettled in New Zealand. He had escaped the Khmer Rouge twice, moving first in around 1971 to Phnom Penh with his family, until the Khmer Rouge emptied Phnom Penh, sending the town’s residents back to their traditional provincial homes. He didn’t dwell on his story, but he told me that he and his sister escaped from the Khmer Rouge, and cycled across Cambodia to reach the Thai border. I imagined how long it must have taken, the dangers they must have faced, the close calls they inevitably encountered, the fear they must have felt. At the time they didn’t know what had happened to the rest of their family, but eventually their mother and another sister joined them in Wellington. They were lucky.

Sereyvuth then studied English by working as a taxi driver (for years all the taxi drivers in Wellington were Cambodians, now they tend to be Somalian), and in the kitchens at the hospital. In just a few short years his English allowed him to attend university, and he gained a degree in Political Science. He returned to work in the refugee camps as a translator, then joined the party of his Prince, first based in Bangkok (where I first met him) whilst they were still exiled, and then back in Phnom Penh. He was so proud, so pleased to be able to return home. A few years later, he became a Cabinet Member at only around 33 years of age, as Minister of Tourism. A good advertisement for his country.

One day in Phnom Penh I had arranged to meet him. He came with a friend. Touch was also from Wellington, back in Cambodia for the first time to visit his father, who had not managed to leave. The two friends had lived next door to each other in Phnom Penh. They never knew if the other had survived until, one day in Wellington at a Cambodian community event, they bumped into each other. The joy on their faces as they told that story brought tears to my eyes.

Around the same time, New Zealand was elected to the Security Council of the United Nations. We knew that the Cambodia issue was going to be an important part of the work on the Council, and so when our Foreign Minister visited, we arranged for a visit to the refugee camps on the border. We flew there courtesy of the Thai Prime Minister, in his official helicopter, sound-proofed with leather seats. Drinks were served. We flew directly over my host family’s home in the Bangkok suburbs, as I excitedly pointed it out to the Minister and my colleagues. When we landed we met a stark contrast of fortunes.

The largest camp held 200,000 Cambodians, living in tin huts, arranged in orderly rows and “streets.” The conditions were basic, but not so different from those endured by the rural Thais who lived in the surrounding areas, and so there could be little argument that conditions should be improved. The Thai government was ill-equipped to cope with such an influx of needy people, but did not turn them away. The UN and other agencies did an amazing job supporting these people. (Don’t ever tell me the UN doesn’t do anything). The people were looking forward to either resettlement in the West, perhaps reuniting with other family members there, or returning home as part of the peace process.

A photograph was taken of our tall, handsome Foreign Minister standing talking to a man on crutches, his right leg blown off by a landmine. A small, bedraggled boy, the man’s son, stood to the side. The photographer snapped his camera just as the Minister reached out to the boy, and he looked up, laughing in wonder at this giant man.

When in doubt, blog about the weather

The choppy sea was a faded, cool, green this morning, covered in white-tipped waves. The waves were crashing against the harbour edges, the foam flying high across the railway lines, and the clouds raced across the sky. Earlier this morning I had cancelled a trip across to the vineyard region to visit a friend, as the hill road was closed by snow. Yet the sun shone brightly, and I squinted, wishing I had remembered my sunglasses. Spring in New Zealand is always unpredictable.

Queensland: Why (not)?

Queensland (and Australia generally) is a popular place for NZers to live. All of us probably know someone who lives there, most of us have some relatives who live there. So, of course, it occasionally crosses our minds … should we go too? After a long weekend in Brisbane, I feel more qualified to comment.

Reasons why:

1. Warmth: There is a freedom with warmth. My shoulders drop, my neck relaxes, my posture improves, I don’t worry every morning if I’ve missed the weather forecast, I can go out without contemplating just how many layers I will need, and best of all, I can relax outside with a coffee.You don’t need as many clothes in the summer, and that must be cheaper. Sandals are cheaper than boots, no need for expensive winter coats, etc.
2. Seafood: prawns, yabbies (I love the name), beer-battered barramundi, accompanied with fantastic Thai or Vietnamese flavoured sauces. Mmmmmmm.
3. Myers/David Jones. Big department stores you can spend hours in.
4. Pleasant open areas. Life is lived outside, and the governments and councils seem to have recognised this and provide parks and gardens and places for picnics, walking/riding, etc.
5. It’s flat. I feel a twitching in my toes when I’m somewhere that is flat. I have an urge to walk and run, to get on a bicycle. Here, I live on the top of a steep hill. So whenever I talk a walk (and I haven’t owned a bicycle for years), I know that at the end of the walk, I face a steep incline to get home. The thought of that is usually enough to deter me.
6. Skin cancer awareness. There was a public notice from the Queensland government on TV that said “there is no such thing as a healthy tan.” Finally, somewhere that shares my philosophy.
7. Mangoes and pineapple.
8. There is a degree of formality when it comes to dining out or going to parties. Australian women like to dress up. I like to dress up. In New Zealand, we have taken being relaxed to a ridiculous extreme.
9. A great variety of food. With a large Mediterranean population, and a growing Asian presence, my favourite foods are well represented.
10. It’s only 5 or 7 hours to Asia.

Reasons why not:

1. Australian TV. They used to produce some good dramas, though I haven’t seen any for a while. But then there are the chat/variety shows, ensuring that the “Australian content quota” is met.
2. Australian rivers. I looked out our hotel window in the morning, and saw the sunlight sparkling on the river below. It would have been pretty, if the river had not been brown. Brown rivers – they’re just wrong. And sad.
3. Expensive good food. We ate out at some award-winning restaurants, and the food was good. But we were surprised how expensive it was, particularly given that everyone in NZ seems to think Australia is a cheaper place to live.
4. Poisonous slimy things (snakes), and dangers in the water. What’s the point of having warm seawater if you can’t go in at certain times of the year because you’ll either get stung (jellyfish) or eaten (crocodiles or sharks)?
5. Skin cancer. 80% of all cancers diagnosed in Australia are skin cancer. 66% of all Australians will be diagnosed with skin cancer by the time they turn 70. Avoiding sunburn in such a climate would be hard.
6. Australians aren’t fans of clothes. They show a lot of flesh, which is both a) unsightly (over many years and visits to Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, I have observed that the women often seem to wear clothes about two sizes too small, and inches too short for the state of their thighs), and b) scary, if I found myself doing it too.
7. If I lived there, I would have to ask for a skinny cappuccino. Australians pronounce it skeeeneee – I could never bring myself to do that. And as soon as I opened my mouth and asked for a skunny cappuccino, I would be setting myself up for ridicule.
8. My hair goes fluffy. Beautifully straightened hair inside, I turn into Basil Brush when I emerge into the heat and humidty. I’d have to cut it off. I’m not sure I’m ready to do that.
9. Relative distance to relatives.
10. Four minute showers. It is a strange land. So many of the homes have swimming pools, yet there are droughts and bushfires, and pleas to keep showers to only four minutes. Four minutes???????

Doing the Dishes

My post about my time in Wat Bak Nam (The Temple at the River Mouth) as a Buddhist nun, and Helen’s post about a meditation retreat, brought back memories.

In the early nineties, when I was back in Thailand as a diplomat, a good Thai friend gave me Thich Nhat Hanh’s book, “The Miracle of Being Awake.” It is a beautiful little book, about the benefits of mindfulness, of appreciating the moment, living in the moment. I think everyone can do with a reminder that this is important. It’s one of the reasons I read the blogs I do. They are all particularly good at appreciating the moment, about celebrating the simple things in life. I put the book away for a long time, but I realise now that much of it stayed with me. During a particularly difficult time in my life, as I struggled to take pleasure in my life as a whole and the direction it was going, I found that I took great pleasure in the little moments. Being able to stop and enjoy the “now” when the future seemed bleak gave me much hope. I think TNH would have approved.

So when Helen wrote about “working meditation” when doing the dishes, I remembered this little book. I remembered the chapter on “washing the dishes to wash the dishes.” This particular chore has never been my favourite, and washing the dishes to wash the dishes (the journey is important, rather than the aim simply to get them done), was a foreign concept to me. Now I understand it better, but back in the temple, at 18, when one of my fellow AFS nuns volunteered to do the dishes after lunch, I remember being extremely peeved. I could have used some mindfulness.

The temple fed hundreds of monks, nuns and followers. The piles of dishes were mind-boggling. It was hot, and we were tired after rising at 4 am. It took the four of us hours to complete. I’m not sure I took pleasure in washing the dishes simply to wash the dishes.

Washing the dishes - we'd only just begun!

Life as a Buddhist Nun

We woke early at 4 am. It was quiet and dark, but we could hear the nuns around us getting ready to go to morning prayers, moving and talking softly, before they made their way to the temple room where the nuns worshipped. The temple was very segregated – the monks worshipped separately, in a larger but, I thought, uglier room. The women had a more intimate space down by the canal.

Some mornings we sneaked in late, kneeling on the mats at the back of the room. Louise was always hard to wake at that hour of the morning, and the others took their time. Despite the fact that I love my bed and am definitely not a morning person, then and still now I tend to be a rule-follower, and wanted to be there on time. Besides, once we got there it was worth it.

The room was decorated in classic Thai temple style, with an altar type arrangement of Buddhas at the front. The temple was dimly lit, candles surrounding the Buddhas cast a golden glow, silhouetted in front of us were the lines of nuns in their white, flowing robes and shaven heads. All was quiet, until the eerie chanting began. We joined in when we could, as we had had to learn the basic chants before we were permitted to join the temple and wear the robes. The chants echoed around the temple:

Namo tassa
bhagavato
arahato
sammā-sambuddhassa

Homage to
the Blessed One,
the Worthy One,
the Rightly Self-awakened One

Towards the end of prayers, we would hear the occasional long-tail boat on the klong (canal) alongside the temple, its motor sounding softer than usual, moving slowly, more cautiously in the dark of the early morning. But it was the first sign that the early morning tranquillity, with its serene magic, was about to be broken; the day was beginning, the city starting to wake, and dawn was not far away.