Where is the story?

Reading while you're writing is an interesting experience especially if what you're reading relates closely to what you're writing about: forces you to remember things you'd portioned away somewhere in the back of your mind but that will now make a welcome experience. Because the novel spans time and goes backwards and forwards, establishing character motivations, relationships etc, I'm remembering things that happened when I was growing up in the 90s. Some of the more global things are going to play a role in the book itself, because they have to; they give you an insight into who these people were/are. It's a fascinating experience.

There are still things that I can cover in subsequent pieces, because I'll have something else to write about and I've been living with this story for years. The other one that'll probably get a novel aside from the Carousel series (of shorts), is Numb. A lot can be written about those two characters and their worlds that might seem too sudden or quick for a short story. Various avenues have suddenly opened up and I like this process of reevaluation and retrospection. The story of people intrigues me and if we're going to have great, political happenings in the region, I'm going to use this God given talent to depict real people reminding ourselves and the world at large (or however "large" an audience that reads my work, ha!) that we're real people too. Irrespective of culture or nationality or religion, we are at our corest, human beings. The best stories I've read were written by non-Pakistanis that spoke to me as a person versus anything else; that's what you identify with at the end of the day. There was Shadow of the Wind about dealing with loss and grieving for things, people, objects and somewhere in there, a love for reading. It touched a nerve and concepts like having a cemetery for forgotten books is something that will eternally fascinate. There was The Last Days of Summer about a correspondence of a young boy with his baseball idol that stuck with me and that brought up childhood memories. But people approach reading differently, if a recent episode of BBC's The Culture Show has taught me anything: some approach it with the idea that it's an escapist medium. It takes you out of your world, much like films do. But still, you want something in there to identify with, I can imagine. Even if it's sci-fi realism, there are still people or at least beings with human-like emotions and there's the identifying factor all over again. Yes, true, there are some things that are uniquely cultural but there are universal truths as well and that's where I get frustrated, because as I said in my earlier post: there is so much to see still. There is still much of life to live, to write about and like any good book, it isn't about the ending: it's about the journey to get there. That's the real story. 

Meanwhile, I might be relocating to wordpress after years of faithfully serving Blogspot's servers, both TMS and low key/slate use the platform, and it's easier to work on the one thing. Besides, the platform rocks! There's a lot more flexibility with it so for now, it's bye-bye blogger, hello Wordpress.

Hope to see you guys on the other side! :)