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Sunday
Nov292009
Day Something or Other: In the studio
November 29, 2009
It is my writing day today and I am at the studio that a few of us are sharing this year. It’s a tiny house with two rooms, owned by a local fisherman's family. The fishermen are the brothers of my neighbor, Maria.
I am in a small room with a peaked roof. The walls are all white, and the roof is covered with the red clay tiles that they use here in South India. Right now the family is cooking over a wood fire outside, and it’s smoking really badly and it has crept up under the roof until the house is full of smoke. My eyes are burning.
I am sitting at a simple wooden table with my computer, drinking a cup of coffee. I have my small electric burner over here, so I can keep making cups of coffee whenever I feel like I am going to fall asleep, which seems to be my body’s response to the great strain of so much creative output. I am trying to write a whole lot today, since I spent yesterday on the scooter, trying to get all the rent money for my landlord. It’s never easy to get a lot of money here, and he wanted it for the remaining months that we will be in Goa. Something about a loan that he needs to pay off, something with high interest.
The room where I write fiction is an exhausting place; fun, but full of hidden caverns that I might fall down into and never emerge from. Parenting seems much simpler, in contrast. I’m glad I can return to that world, when I am done here.
I am in a small room with a peaked roof. The walls are all white, and the roof is covered with the red clay tiles that they use here in South India. Right now the family is cooking over a wood fire outside, and it’s smoking really badly and it has crept up under the roof until the house is full of smoke. My eyes are burning.
I am sitting at a simple wooden table with my computer, drinking a cup of coffee. I have my small electric burner over here, so I can keep making cups of coffee whenever I feel like I am going to fall asleep, which seems to be my body’s response to the great strain of so much creative output. I am trying to write a whole lot today, since I spent yesterday on the scooter, trying to get all the rent money for my landlord. It’s never easy to get a lot of money here, and he wanted it for the remaining months that we will be in Goa. Something about a loan that he needs to pay off, something with high interest.
The room where I write fiction is an exhausting place; fun, but full of hidden caverns that I might fall down into and never emerge from. Parenting seems much simpler, in contrast. I’m glad I can return to that world, when I am done here.
in Writing
Writing 
Reader Comments (6)
Yay for writing! Keep it up, you're doing great!
You can do it! I have faith in you. Just go with the flow so to speak....
All right. Perhaps you will not believe the coincidence, but I'll write this commentbox anyway.
So.
I live near a beach and I walk there almost every morning, and almost every morning I bump into a cheerful elderly gentlemen carrying a fishing rod. We always say hi to each other, and I like to ask him if he's caught anything. I think he's Italian/Greek, his accent is strong, and he often says "No, no catch, but doesn't matter, I go every day because is fun anyway."
I passed him two days ago and as I walked back home I thought to myself that I might need to adopt my fisherman friend's philosophy. I'm writing a screenplay at the Film School library, and I go every day but often come back with nothing. Doesn't matter, keep going. I'm fishing.
I've been working on a post about this and I decided to call it "The Parable of the Fisherman"...which immediately made me think of you. It felt very Journeymamaish to write such a post, and this made me smile.
So now I read that you are writing in a house which belongs to a fisherman.
That's just so good.
I miss my painting so much. I am not that good, but it feels so good to do it. There is plainly no space for such here, but I will be having a whole room in an old building at our new house site.
And as I write this I hear Miss. Frizzle (magic school bus) say 'Get Messy, Make Mistakes and Take Chances'. I think that shall be my new motto! Enjoy your day of writing and smoke smelling coffee!
Yes, keep fishing Rae.
Hi there. I stumbled across your blog tonight and am happy to de-lurk and say I have enjoyed reading it. I wish you luck on your writing - it's wonderful that you actually have the opportunity and the means to do it. Live it! One day I hope to be in your position - well, not necessarily in a shack in India - but able to devote my life to writing. One day. :)