Left Field and No-Man’s Land

Desert land.  Stretching far beyond the eye can see, the rising haze playing games with your perception.  That’s what much of Jordan and Israel are like.

So what’s the great danger in these harsh lands, other than being caught without water?  No, not terrorists.

Get ready for it.

Sign in the Israeli Desert

I kid thee not.  Flash floods apparently do occur in certain areas of the desert.  They’ve lost entire groups of tourists out by Petra, Jordan’s gem ancient city, and in the desert surrounding Israel’s Masada, a symbol of martyrdom which stands remote on a mountain top near the Dead Sea.

Can you imagine that–dying of a flood in a desert?  A more interesting and memorable way to go than being run over by a car in Georgia, or hit by a Wall Street business wonk dashing in to work.

Jordanian Vessels in the Desert Near Petra

I went to both countries with my dad last summer, taking a two week break from Georgia.  My dad sprung Petra on me as a surprise.  WHAT a surprise.  It was gorgeous.  And I wish I had more shots, but my camera collapsed of exhaustion and refused to function.

Coming back into Israel proved a mite difficult for me.  The guards reckoned me for an Israeli citizen by virtue of my background, and kept asking for my non-existent Israeli ID.  Amusing.  My dad rescued me from no-man’s land.  So much time spent in no-man’s land that summer of 2008.  A metaphor for the year, or for my life?  Time may tell.

In August 2008, I’d spent about five hours between Georgia and Armenia, escaping the Russian incursion.  It was, to say the least, a stressful time for everyone, not least the Georgian staff, who were amazing.  But one thing really gave me a chuckle.

Peace Corps was set on our safety, of course.  Their number one goal, as they iterated.  When the bombing started, we gathered in a southern town in Georgia, all the volunteers from throughout the country making their way there with Peace Corps’ help.  We waited there for a few days, coalescing.  Every day we had three to five meetings with staff to discuss the situation.  And this is what amused me:

The plan was, if the Russians actually invaded, if one Russian boot stepped foot on Georgian soil, if a true land invasion began, then we’d leave.  That moment.

Why did I find that funny?  Because apparently the Russian boot was more dangerous than the Russian bomb; their planes were flying overhead and bombing with impunity, the Georgian air force being negligible.  (I should note that the Russians were targeting airbases so Peace Corps’ decision wasn’t as arbitrary as it might seem.)  :)

Ah well.  Eventually their army indeed decided to make their point more vividly, and the Russians did soil Georgian land with their army boots, and we in turn moved south too, but to Armenia, which seemed not a whit disturbed by the war to the north, focused as they were on the Olympics.

Such is life.

And a bonus Petra shot for the day:

Petra, Jordan

The Two Realms of Novel Writing (for me)

Thomas Mann once quipped that:  ”A writer is a person for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.”  Well, maybe it wasn’t a quip.  Maybe it was God’s honest truth.  ;-)

I’m finding that when I write, I work simultaneously within two separate realms.

Realm Gel

Realm Gel is my laptop.  This is where I type the story, for the most part in sequence.  That is, the order the story unfolds (or rather, is told).

Sometimes I’ll find I don’t know how to get from A to B on my plot line, although I know A must run to B for the story to unfold properly, and in those cases I write the scenes I can see or sense in my mind’s eye.  The connective tissue will come when it comes.

For example:  I have S in danger in one location, and A in danger in another location.  I know that they must reunite to face their peril together, but that both will have run-ins or find crucial information before that time.  But maybe I don’t know how they meet up again, although I know that when this happens, S and A have very different ideas of what their priorities should be, and that scene is hot in my mind.  So I simply write that scene that I see.  I mark the “gap” with yellow highlighter, so I know it’s there and to write it.  It lingers in my mind until the solution is found, or another scene evolves into the connection I need, and it’s seamlessly added.

(Ha! I hope it’s seamlessly added.  But right now I still see strings all about the place.  But that’s what a first draft is for.  Cutting the pattern and doing the first fitting.)

My only rule thus far is don’t go back.  So if you read the manuscript now, you’d see that character K’s pool hall is called something completely different in the beginning of the book, and that he’s minor and cheery at best.  And yet around page 142 or so, when he’s referenced again, it seems he has a much greater role in the book’s plot, and his character has been given depth that isn’t even hinted at in the beginning.  In other words, you can see the progression of the idea in the various parts of the manuscript, because I haven’t gone back to the beginning yet, to fix him up, set him up better, and rename the pool hall.  That’ll come later.

And his progression, absent in Realm Gel, is evident in my second realm, where he developed in the wings.  Realm Gel is the part that I think non-writers focus on as the main storytelling tool.  At least, that’s what I focused on.  But that leaves out the crucial realm of idea percolation and story development.

Realm Wings (beloved notebooks, blessed be they)

I value my notebooks more than my money in my purse at this point.  It’s in my notebooks that everything cooks and percolates. It’s my fridge of ideas, my farm of buzzers.  It’s there that I brainstorm plot, explore characters and write down random quotes, questions (for myself) and tips.  In a sense, the book springs from this well.

And although an outsider couldn’t glean what I was going on about, the notebooks remain sacredly, sacredly private.  Like a heart of hearts, except never to be shown.

My notebooks read like they’re written by a loon ordered by a judge to speak only in the form of questions, or to make contrary statements one after another.

I have scrawled questions of the “what if Y did Z?” variety, and of the “is P really R?” type.  Then there’s a whole bunch of “what does D really want?” or “what line would B never cross?”  And let’s not forget the “Does B need to think this way, because otherwise he couldn’t accept what F has done?”  Or “would D take it back if he could?“

Then there’s things like:  G is in control.  G is in control, but only at night.  D controls G.  D is afraid of G.  D created G but G’s out of control.  D is afraid of D. (Yeah, that won’t throw anyone for a loop.)  In the end, it’s about throwing all the options out there till one feels right to me.  Eventually Realm Gel will see the answer as it’ll be the story that’s chosen.

And most noticeably, I have entire characters and suggestions of overarching plot/framework in the notebooks which haven’t yet seen the light of laptop day, yet they together with the laptop form the evolving book in my mind.  The twain–references in the notebooks and writing in the laptop–can only meet when they’re ready.  When they can take their mantle on in the story.

Sometimes I can get caught up with where I am in the notebooks–ALWAYS ahead but ALWAYS facing questions I don’t have answers to–and forget that my laptop’s not caught up with them.  Then I feel I have hit a bump in the writing and must brainstorm before writing further…until I read over where I’ve left it, and realize I’ve LOADS yet to share with Realm Gel, thanks to Realm Wing’s ongoing trip.  :)

It’s like the laptop is the map with the pins for “where we’ve been” and the notebooks are future travel musings, but laden with more stress and tension.  Because, of course, usually when one travels, one is trying to AVOID the river with crocodiles, but if you’re in a book set in Africa, well, you’re trying to figure out how to make sure everyone MUST cross the river (or die), and with a baby in tow.  :)

And it’s Realm Wing that takes flight in the middle of the night, on subway rides, in the cafes, on the streets, and while watching TV or cooking, and for that reason my trusty notebooks are always with me.  From time to time, Realm Wing is so ready to take flight that I simply grab the laptop and let the idea flow straight into Realm Gel.  But there’s always, always, two realms to this writing my first draft….

Anyone reading this writing too?  If so, how’s it for you?

* The author has no crocodiles in either Realm, nor, as of yet, any babies.

Standing Before the Church: Ani in Turkey

It’s Not What You Know. It’s What I Don’t.

I’m working in a wine shop for the present.  And I find myself noticing something that’s been pointed out to me for years.

I can speak English, Russian and Hebrew to varying degrees of fluency.
I can read basic Turkish, Ukrainian, Georgian and Serbian/Bosnian/Croatian.
I can recognize many Armenian and Arabic letters.
I have shabby Azeri, Polish and Afrikaans comprehension.
I know the difference in pronunciation of “sz” in Hungarian vis-a-vis Polish, and can read a variety of permutations on the basic Latin alphabets used by Turkic and Slavic dialects.

But I know not a whit of Italian, French, Spanish or Portuguese.  The only languages really useful in a wine store.  And I can’t even fake French.

So I now concur with all and sundry.  I apparently am only attracted to zany languages.  *sigh*  :)

** Photo below of another zany place.  Click on it for zany information.  The only kind I gather about me.

Remaining Husk of a Church in Ani, the Ancient Armenian Capital Currently Located in Turkey

Last summer; or Life and Dreams in a Small Caucasus Town

Sighnaghi in the Mist

I served in Georgia, the Republic nestled in between the Greater and Lesser Caucasus Ranges, touching on Chechnya and Russia to the north and cradling the Black Sea to the West, with Turkey, Armenia and Azerbaijan neighboring in the south.  I was to be there for two years and three months, only the Russian army had other ideas, and invaded after one year.

In a country famous for its dramatic mountain ranges and exquisite landscape, I had managed to be placed in one of the flattest areas, where the earth looked parched despite its great bounty of potatoes and tomatoes.

Hungry cattle wended their way through the town streets, leaving behind manure and a sense of fatigue and never-ending days. Sheep were slaughtered by butchers on the main street, tied up on the pavement where they could see their fate in the fates of necks chopped before theirs.  Chickens were sold live, and carried home by their feet.  Everything was bought amid the din of a huge, bustling bazaar which opened at 5am.  Azeri music blared on stereos, together with Turkish, Russian and Georgian pop.

Schools ran on shoe-string budgets, with paint peeling from walls and the stench of the toilets pervading entire floors.  The hospital was visited by stray dogs and cats, cobwebs hung throughout the dank grey corridors, and it felt a visceral shock to the system to actually see people coming there to get treated to feel better.

Unemployed men littered the streets, whiling away hours in teahouses that women were better off not even looking into for fear of appearing wanton.  Women worked their fingers to the bone, slaving over troughs filled with laundry, preserves and dirty dishes.  Hard working men and women in offices faced electrical outages, gas outages, internet outages and general scarcity to get their jobs done.  The only fax machine in town was in the mayor’s office.  Life was, in a word, hard.

I loved this town, and I didn’t, too.

But most of all, when the days were hard and long, and when I was reeling from the unforgiving and harsh beating the sun doled out every summer, night and day, I would look south, beyond the confines of town, out to the blue waves of the Armenian mountains, and I would drink in the sight and imagine the fresh, wet, cool smell of those beautiful mountains.  And I would dream of going there.

Otar, my friend’s wonderful father, who took care of me as if I’d been adopted into the family, wondered at my fascination.  When I announced to all and sundry that I would spend the upcoming Saturday walking to the border with Armenia, some 39 kilometers away, he was tickled pink but also curious.

“Why, Ruth?” he asked, finally, as he said goodbye to me (and my sitemate who I’d corralled to join me on the trek).  ”Why do you want to walk to the Armenian border?”

I thought for a moment.  ”Because it’s something I can’t do in America.”

Little did I know that one day I’d be on the other side of that self-same border, desperate to return over those now accursed Armenian crags back to my dusty little town from which war had torn me.

*** the photo is from the gorgeous town of Sighnaghi, which is to the east of Tbilisi.  My town remains unnamed thus far in my blog, but was south of Tbilisi.

***I returned after the war was officially ended three weeks later, this time not as a Peace Corps Volunteer, but as an independent citizen, volunteering without the aegis of a sponsoring institution.