A New Short Story and My ~Fancy~ Presskit!

This week is just a short post because the past few weeks have been a hectic time! But I wanted to celebrate the accomplishments that have happened in that time.

First, I (finally) put together a presskit! It's been a long time in coming and it was actually an enjoyable experience to reflect on all the cool shows and projects I've been a part of. You can see that presskit here.

And second, my short story "To Whom We Return," has come out in TAYO Magazine! It's a little fright, and sitting alongside some of my favorite talented friends in poetry and prose, so be sure to check out the whole issue.

TAYO Issue Seven cover page with artwork of three light-skinned Asian people whose upper bodies are made of building materials.

More to come!

In 2018, Dedication over Discipline

If you live in the Seattle area, I’ll be performing a pastiche piece of works that I’ve written this year at Amplifier Art Lab on Thursday, January 4^th at 6pm, alongside my friend and fabulous artist Jess X Snow. Tell us you’re going on Facebook and I hope to see you there!

[Image description: cross-hatched pen drawing on December planner pages of a person with red earrings, wearing a blue headscarf, with eyes closed]

This year, I’m dedicated to:

-        Returning to good body practices and rituals (such as exercise and meal planning)

-        Re-forming a relationship to my interests outside of work (Bangla, tabla, derby, yoga, crafts, etc.)

-        Reconnecting to long distance friends

-        Continuing to pursue all my creative projects, including editing a novel, writing a show, making a new zine, blogging, and drafting new short stories

-        Keep delving deep into vulnerability

The end of 2017 came up fast for me, much faster than I expected. I have a pretty regular seasonal practice of going through my things and clearing out what no longer serves me. It’s always a tug of war between my inner archivist and the part of myself seduced by minimalism. The first one has saved every paper journal since I was 4 years old, and has no plans on changing that. The second – with that first taste of fresh blood – wants to get rid of entire rows of unread books and whole segments of my closet.

As I was assessing things to give away, I also looked back in my notebooks from the course of the year. I was mentally building my list of intentions and guiding lights, which are my preferred terms for “resolutions.” If you look back in my planner for 2017, you’ll see that I made goals and guiding lights every month, right below my accomplishments and celebrations. This year, I saw note after note mentioning “a return to [xyz].” A return to exercise practices. A return to taking vitamins daily. Return to cooking at home and waking up earlier in the morning. Return to playing tabla and having dedicated empty time. All of these things that I had at one point been doing and stopped, for a short time or a long one, and that I hoped to make happen again.

With the coming of the New Year, I sometimes get excited to start doing New Things. Let me just excise all the bad habits and mistakes of the last year and start anew. And particularly in what was a shitty year politically, it is easy for me to be seduced by the idea that if I just get this one little thing right I’ll feel better again and more motivated to take on the world. But most of what I found is that I have already learned what is nourishing to me and there’s nothing really “new” about it. So, if I already knew what I needed, why did 2017 feel so draining?

Because I treated everything on my to-do list with equal weight and worry. Because I had cascading to-do lists that filled up every minute of my time. Because I let perfection be the enemy of good. And when I couldn’t live up to this impossible standard, I felt bad about the things I was leaving aside.
There was another section I found in my planner that I liked a great deal, a note to self that said: “You want to recommit to your practices, but I feel like you’re using routine as a stick to beat yourself with. What are the things that [actually] feed your passion?” Yeah, what am I doing? Is it the carrot or the stick? When does “a discipline” transfer over into discipline?

I completed a lot of material goals in 2017, but that productivity hastened me into burnout and new physical pain. In 2018, my goals have shifted only slightly, but I want to work instead on my mentality towards them. I want to find ways to dedicate myself rather than discipline. To “refill the cup” as they say, and to practice more self-care than I talk about it.

The theme of my year ahead is: get out of your own way. If there’s anything for the minimalist in me to pare down, it should be that old attitude.

Let me know what you are dedicating yourself to this year. And kindly subscribe to my email newsletter below! It will feature updates on my work and life, as well as little goodies every once in a while.

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Protecting My Time

A weekend ago, I pulled out my folding table and declared it a "weekend of silence." I wanted to focus on my writing and have some introvert time, which is hard to come by in my life. Particularly as someone who is often caregiving for others to the max -- I mean, do you know what it means to be on call and go to a client at 4am after being awake until 2am? -- carving out space for myself sometimes feels impossible. And yet I still think I have it easy in comparison to my clients with their new babies and people I work with who have to hustle even harder than I do. There are always people who have to do more with less and are routinely more badass than I am about it.

But those comparisons just remind me that protecting my time is immensely valuable. And I wanted to write about the topic because I am genuinely so bad at it.

This post less an "if you just do these 5 things, you'll have all the time you need" and more of a "here's a firm reminder that you need to protect your time" no matter what you use it for. I tend to think that we all bow to the pressures around us, fall off the horse and then get back on it, wiggle around a little, fall off, get back, etc. And in some ways I think that is really beautiful - it is a true opportunity to push ourselves further.

I know that I have found a process that works for me, after so many experiments. This past weekend, I chose to listen to it fully (and that truly was a choice that had to be made!)

On the first night, I revamped my white board (really a green board). It used to just be a long long laundry list of tasks that were very vague and most of the details were kept in my head. So the first thing I did was get very specific. I gave tasks a rating scale of how much effort they would need, and I put even little things like 'email this person' up next to 'write an essay draft'. It's now organized in 'To Do', 'Doing', and 'Done.' And it gives my nerd heart a little thrill to watch as things move progressively over to the right.

And then I just forgot about it.

I tend to be that person who has to dump everything out of my head before I can let go and make space for the real work to be done. If it is in my head, it's buzzing. On the board, I can go sit at my folding table and paint until the words come (and yes, I paint and knit and consider it all part of my writing practice; doing something tactile really settles me into that work).

The second morning, I woke up without feeling anxious. Because I really did give myself permission for whatever needed to happen to make my writing process feel grounded. Intuition guided me to nap or to break out the sticky notes or to change locations so I could focus better. I made sure that the dishes were done and that all my materials were laid out in advance.

On the third day, it was the eclipse. I chose to go be with people I care about and watch it happen - historical event, you know? - but I also drew the energy I needed. Social interactions for me can be draining or they can refill my cup, the difference being the choice I made to participate.

On the final night, my client called me and that marked the end of my self-focused time. Back to the world. But back to the world with the confidence that I could always create that space again. Next weekend, next month - preferably not next year! My next big step will be to take some concentrated time away to take what I learned about my novel this weekend and flesh it way out.

For now, here was my board at the end of the weekend:

If you'd like to read a snippet of some of the things I worked on, consider subscribing to my Patreon to gain access to a newsletter with extra little goodies (and sometimes drafts of my work!)

I'm Back! And Launching my Patreon

I'm back! The last you heard of me, in late February, I was setting out my goals for the coming months and trying to strategize how to use my limited time/resources. I thought that I would be able to get a blog post up monthly and planned for my next one to be in late March - March and August are about the same, right?

2017 has been a year to shake things up. I've started my own independent doula business and am coming out of the woods with my novel project. I committed to training for roller derby and actually feel (sort of) confident on skates. I've got a lot going on, but that also means I've got a lot to share! So, in hopes of returning to that goal I set out months ago, I'm returning to a regular writing practice at this space.

I'm also launching my Patreon campaign today! Many of you may already know what I do, but in case you're new here or just want to hear my voice, I've made a little video for you. Bonus: you get to see my cat photobomb me at the end. Enjoy the video and watch this space for more words to come.

'We Are Irreplaceable' Collaboration & Writing Elsewhere

It's been dead silent around here for the past couple of months; I've been working on a couple projects that have taken me further away from my messy blog. I've also gone through two bouts of illness this winter (remarkable for someone who doesn't get sick often!), seen two babies born in my doula work, and transitioned out of one job and into another. Someday I'll get around to recapping everything in its full rich detail, but for now I'll put down a roundup of the collaborations and writing I've been doing elsewhere around the internet:

My long-time friend, the brilliant artist Jess X. Chen created these two posters using my face as a model and collaborated with me on the caption text. They are for the #nobannowall protests that occurred after the immigration ban earlier this month. They are available for download at justseeds.

'To Allah we belong and to Allah we return’ is a rough translation of the dua said at someone’s death. Blessed is this temporary cycle. We are part of a long lineage, a history of others who have dreamed us into being (as Walidah Imarisha puts it in the introduction to Octavia’s Brood). We are ourselves complete and also part of this larger whole and while we are impermanent, we are irreplaceable. Remember that you have the hands of ancestors at your back, and the duty to dream of the generations ahead of you.

I've written a piece called 'Life After' about the Tr**p election and what it means for us as vulnerable populations. Check that out at Fragments Magazine.

The Theo Westenberger Estate blog is featuring a piece about my experiential research process from my time in Bangladesh -- it's called 'The Accordion Exercise' and talks about some of my novel-writing process.

Finally, next month I will be in NYC working yet again on the lovely Feminist Zine Fest! If you're in the city, please come through and support independent writers and art-makers from across North America. More info at our website and Facebook page.

A Couple Failures

A terrifying red mushroom that appeared in my yard and collapsed partially under its own weight.

Allow for me to give a detailed account of the things I didn't do this past month:

I didn't make it to 50,000 words this NaNoWriMo;
I didn't meet my personal fundraising goal for Project As[I]Am to put out another issue;
I got a dramatic injury and didn't go to my first derby practice league meetup;
Due to the same dramatic injury, I did nothing for Thanksgiving other than binge watch TV shows;
Much of my work felt like it got away from me.

All this... and nothing major happened. There was no fiery explosion. My airbags didn't even inflate.

Too often I hold on to a lot of self-judgment about not meeting my own (admittedly very high) expectations. For a few months now, I have been skidding along on my own efficiency - I am incredibly good at working and getting things in on deadline, even if it means that I'm working up to the last minute. But this month was riddled with more than the usual ebbs and flows in productivity. I first got a cold, then another one. I got a tailbone injury which had me unable to easily sit upright.  And, of course, you know what else happened last month. The secondary trauma response that fired up in me post-election was as searing as the tailbone pain, radiating outward in waves. There's a reflection to be written about that sometime - I'll add it to my already tall stack of deadlines.

I got particularly anxious this month when I started feeling like the things on my plate were piling ever higher. I would have a day when I could get back to my usual productivity and then crashed completely the next. I started using a goal-setting calendar app that gives you reminders and there would be 5-7 sitting on my home screen all day everyday. What a guilt trap.

But I also found myself relying on the oft-repeated advice to be gentle and kind to oneself. No one is clamoring to read my book. No one needs me to speak on a panel or facilitate a workshop (though I'd gladly take the gig). No one is blowing up my social media about when my next piece is coming out. Though it may sound like a cold comfort, I was reminded that there is a kind of luxury in not having a completely public life.

Instead I've been relishing smaller behind-the-scenes victories like working with my first doula client in over a year. I've been doing the #100RejectionsChallenge and submitting far more often than ever before. I have been truly absorbed by good literature and lectures, particularly this one by Sheila Heti. Paradoxically, all those reminders on my phone are helping me remember what I really want to be doing rather than just moving from task to task like an automaton. In that way, I am setting a solid foundation for myself while the world around me is shifting in so many perceptible and imperceptible ways. It's time to be safe and take the best care that we can.

Flooded

Project As[I]Am has re-opened its call for submissions! Submit your work by July 5th for a chance to be included in our issue, themed "Our Greatest Resource," on emotional labor and solidarity through love.

This week, I wanted to write about something completely mundane. I moved into my new apartment this week, putting everyone who helped me through hell. I started working on a bunch of fantastic spreadsheets this week. I interviewed young people about their experiences with arts programs...

But all of that got overshadowed by the obvious, by the tragedy that Orlando and hit our communities at large. I wrote a very personal piece about the experience of grief and media management over at CultureStrike, and I did two interviews about the incident as well. It was the only way that I felt useful, offering my words in place of anything more material. It still doesn't feel like enough. I mention it only briefly here because I have felt spent; it's worrying to me that on one level we are carving up every conceivable angle of the thing, but on the other the news cycle has already moved past it. It's a weird time to celebrate Pride. It's a weird time to forecast any sort of future...

In the past week, I also flew out to New York and attended the Kundiman writing retreat for Asian American writers -- perhaps because I was going through so many life transitions in the past month, it didn't fully register that I was going until I arrived in Newark off the red-eye and had to navigate my way into the city (hint: don't get stuck going the wrong direction on the AirTrain, it takes forever to get back). Little did I know that the retreat would be such a gift. It was so vital to me to bond with Asian Americans doing creative work and who have been doing creative work far longer than I have. Too often you have to hunt down Asian American literature in bookstores, and rarely do I feel connected to any sort of legacy. I walked away with not only a community of incredibly generous writing folk, but a long list of books to read all through the rest of the summer -- when I'm not furiously typing out my own additions to that canon, that is.

I'm leaving off this post with a few examples of my outlet writing for these past few weeks; though the form I wrestle with most is prose, I've been doing a poetry-a-day group for Ramadan as an outlet. Here are a few of my favorites from the month thus far:

Pantoum #1 
Bloodstained sheets, early morning,
Bound volume of poems,
Yellowed at the edge.
She carries it all with her.

Bound volumes of poems,
She never opens,
She carries it with her, always;
Reminding her of bloodied things.

She never opens,
Never tells the stories,
That remind her of bloodied things.
Instead, she carried them tightly bound.

She never does tell the stories,
Preferring to wash,
The things she carried tightly bound,
Bloodstained sheets, each early morning.



Water
Red snake headwrap,
Blue round headphones,
Tongue perched on the edge of her mouth --
Nearly silent laughter.
Public places,
Work meetings;
She speaks volumes with her eyes.
At night, she performs ojhu alone at the sink,
In shorts with unshaved legs exposed,
Water on the tongue passing dangerously close,
To her throat.

Makorsha
He lived in a broken down house,
With peeling paint and shredded carpet,
Magazines and old newspapers taped up over the windows.

they come here to die, he said, and then repeated it.
I took a seat and listened.

at the end of their lives, he said,
they come here.
pale translucent skin,
running clumsily on broken legs.

Do they go quietly? I asked.
He didn’t seem to hear, or didn’t want to.
i just can’t ever put them out of their misery…

I watched one trail down the drain as he was speaking,
Turning, quivering, pausing,
The mere suggestion of an animal more than its flesh.

Don't Leave Yourself Behind

I have a piece out in The Atlantic today! For me, this is a huge milestone and also a very important piece, so give it a read.

A chocolate cake with red jello balls on top.

It’s the day before NaNo and all through the house… I’m throwing around drafts and outlines trying to get settled in.

As usual, my writing mind is exhilarated by the constraint and the mad fury that is writing 50,000 words in a single month. I’ve been working on a lot of shorter projects and have tried to build my discipline with research, writing, pitching, etc. But I am drawn to staying in a character’s head for a longer period of time, testing worldview and characteristics for pages and pages rather than paragraphs – even if much of it gets chopped later on.

Armed with a few earlier draft pages, I’ll be growing my story during quick timed exercises. I tend to work better with an overly formulaic structure that pushes me to think creatively within it. I also tend to work better under the cover of night with a bright screen in my face. We’ll see how annoyed my family members become with the cranky, somewhat sleep-deprived version of me that will undoubtedly show up by the end of the month.

I turned 24 this past week. It was a silly sort of day. Here in Dhaka, my family doesn’t really do birthdays. A cake was delivered; a biryani was cooked; several truly terrible jokes about age were told. In the evening, I started a new small notebook and wrote down a birthday intention for the upcoming year. This year: don’t leave yourself behind.

I spent a lot of age 23 in boom-bust cycles. I moved three and a half times – across NYC, across the country, across the ocean. I changed jobs four to five times. I attended births, organized events, grew a magazine, survived yet another long winter… And although I did a lot of great healing work for myself during that time, I also felt like a large part of it was spent worrying.

The challenges of living abroad are simply different challenges. I still worry, of course. But I am blessed to have more time and energy to invest in myself and my own work. Though I don’t have the expectation of returning to the US an entirely changed woman (I will certainly still be a workaholic and a chronic list-maker), I hope that I can return with the skills to hold space for myself no matter how intense the world around me.

With that in mind, let's take a deep breath and start novel-ing!

Hesitation, Authority, and Building the World As You See It

Graffiti of a wooden rowboat in black on a wall.

This week I learned about Bengali magicians working to preserve their mentor’s home. I’ve been reading folktales about jealous queens and urban studies papers about the development of Dhaka high rises. Photographs, art pieces, old magazine ads -- I’ve fallen down the rabbit hole of research.

Research is actually a very exciting part (says the eternal nerd). Like research for an academic paper, I am starting wide and then narrowing my focus based on what calls to me. Unlike research for an academic paper, I don’t actually know what I’m looking for or how much any one thing will influence the end result. Tabla music could teach me how to set the tone and pace of the novel. I could write my characters into the black and white photographs I’ve been looking at. Or both, or neither.

You can probably already see how easy it is to get overwhelmed.

I have a huge set of possibilities – and responsibilities. I agree with Wonderbook author Jeff Vandermeer: sometimes fantasy worlds are easier to construct than real ones. In the real world, I feel clogged with my assumptions and reactions. I’ve read empathetic and complex depictions of Bangladesh and the United States by now, but I’ve also read a lot of generic national histories, a lot of savior narratives, and a lot of just factually inaccurate pieces (several travel guides come to mind). And sometimes instead of absorbing the research, I get seduced by the image that I have for my characters, based on whatever approximation that I’ve read in other novels. There’s a difference between a pastiche of techniques and Frankenstein’s monster.

I needed a way to systematically think about the way I was creating worlds and the characters that inhabit them. Someone online suggested a series of essays called Writing the Other, and I inhaled them. They gave me the much-needed structure for how to go about research; they offered ways to re-evaluate and interrogate myself as I am drafting. Most importantly, they gave me back some confidence in my process.

One can never absorb all aspects of a society. Our social position – class, gender, race/ethnicity, to name a few – changes our access to materials and experiences. There’s no such thing as an impartial observer. I hold that tension in my head all the time as I write, hoping of course that it pushes me as I write my wriggling first draft.

Got Ourselves a Bleeder

 

Street art on a closed sliding door; a painting of a monocle-wearing man's face whose beard is made of letters.

And now, a personal anecdote from my travel in Spain.

In Madrid, the streets are narrow and sidewalks accommodate one person, maybe two, at a time. It’s hot and you’re ill and wandering around. The perfect way to spend a vacation. For a moment, you stop to consult your GPS and that’s when it comes on. The nosebleed actually announces itself.

You can feel the blood sluice down your nasal passage, thick and warm. You turn your head skyward but it’s a little too late – several drops of blood escape onto your arm and the pavement. It’s fortunate that you’re wearing a rust-colored dress. You close your eyes and with one hand pinch your nose. With the other, you fumble for your bag. No tissues. Not even a crappy napkin from the coffee shop you’d just left. You don’t know any Spanish and can barely walk two steps without shooting blood out of your face. You resolve to pace back and forth ineffectually.

Someone taps your shoulder. “I saw you!” Suddenly there are a stack of paper towels in your hand. The shop across the street has a glass storefront window and the very kind woman inside has run across the street to help you. You can’t thank her enough, smiling through a mound of reddening paper.

You soak through all the towels in minutes.

Hurrying along the curling streets, you pass an older couple who tells you (in Spanish, with gestures) to go to a church nearby. She adds a lot of explanation that you can’t understand. You wander off in the direction of the church, but when you get there it is closed. A couple is standing in the doorway, looking a bit concerned as you approach. They point towards a bar across the square, but it also looks closed. Then you see the water spigot at the edge of a nearby playground.

The little kid who holds the lever for you is your new best friend. He gives you enough time to wash the blood off your arms and face before bounding away. You thank him with a thumbs up sign. You’ve never used the thumbs up as often as you have off of US soil. It’s not a universal symbol – not by a long shot – but people can deduce a lot from it. That you’re American, that you’re content with something, that you probably don’t speak their language… You have to throw away the towels you’ve been holding, but that means you’re back to square one. As you calculate the distance between your location and the metro, you’re worried the blood will come back.

Someone makes a noise and you turn around. The bearded man from the couple has come up to you with a half empty packet of tissues. You give another thumbs up sign.

“Broken?” he asks.

You smile, wondering if you should make up a story. “No, just dry.”

I’ve been processing some of the images and experiences I’ve had while traveling, and I’ve come to realize that I’m most inspired by the small moments. I’ve been dying to tell this story of my Epic Nosebleed, otherwise known as the day I made many temporary friends. I’ve been struggling with a less image-based piece of writing for a few days now and so it’s nice to return to something that’s a little more concrete.

So, You're Not a Superhero

So you’re not a superhero. You get frustrated when you mix up verb tenses. You can’t cross the street without saying a small prayer. You’re not conventionally attractive, by American or Bengali standards. You stall in your writing – and your reading and your half-made plans. You take off your kameez one shoulder at a time, hopping on one foot as you tug on the sweaty fabric. You jump at the tiniest tik tiki movement on the wall across from you. You burst out of your new shoes. None of this is possible without you.

I moved to Dhaka a little over 2 weeks ago with the intention to write. I was here 2 years ago on a research project about perceptions of mental health and mental illness, but felt like all of the stories I was collecting deserved a better home than just an academic paper that would be read by only a few people. It was then that the idea for my novel manifested – and now I finally get to pursue it.

I also moved here as a challenge. I needed to shake myself out of my skin, my NYC hustle, and the perfectionism that keeps me from doing the work that I really want to do. It’s an amazing opportunity, but I’m also struggling with it. In my head, I wanted to pick up where I left off in my Bangla study, meet with new friends, and build a community around things that I care about – particularly social justice work. But all of these things take time.

The greatest work is to adjust my expectations as a person with a Western sense of timeline and a tendency towards impatience. It’s hard for me – when sitting down to verb charts or a blank page – to remember that learning isn’t often linear. It’s equally hard to admit feeling lonely and frustrated. I feel sometimes that I have to front like I’m superhuman and don’t have off days. It feels very much like my traveling has come to an end, and I have to learn to be settled.

Recently I’ve turned to this well-worn advice for writers: Revel in the questions. Be less concerned with the answers. Answers are, after all, a matter of growth rather than destination. And even though the results are TBA, I’m cultivating some gratitude for these hard moments as a way to connect more deeply with myself and with others.

Have you ever hit this point? Had these kinds of experiences adjusting to a new lifestyle? I’d love to hear from you – Tweet me @thecowation.