The Book I'm Not Writing: The Tea Merchant

"It is a paradox of creative recovery that we must get serious about taking ourselves lightly. We must work at learning to play," says Julia Cameron in The Artist's Way.

I'm not sure that I'm in need of creative recovery, but I do feel the need to take myself more lightly. The more I do, the more creative I feel myself becoming.

What makes us take ourselves too seriously? I have my life excuses, but I believe I'm also susceptible to societal values. Cameron notes, "We are an ambitious society, and it is often difficult for us to cultivate forms of creativity that do not directly serve us and our career goals."

I have been staging a mini revolt against this ambition by doing all sorts of things that don't serve any useful purpose: an art pilgrimage, a tea pilgrimage, and now fiction writing.

I really have no plans to produce the next famous, or even infamous, novel. I don't know that I will ever finish these little stories I'm spinning. They are my word cups, and I'm floating little tea leaves in them just for fun.

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The Tea Merchant

He jumped into the jeep, jammed his key into the ignition. Hills rose up, everywhere around him. Mountains, really, stepped green and just now hidden by a stubborn white morning fog. It had rained last night, hard and long against his borrowed hut. Still, Li Yang had made her way over the wet path and greeted him before dawn with a cup of tea, green.

Stein had drunk the cup in haste. It could take hours to wind his way up to his destination. But if the rumors were true, it would be worth the journey. Li Yang handed him a small basket. It contained hard-boiled quail eggs, a dried teacake he could scrape as needed, and a few plums. It was a gesture he accepted for politeness sake, though he'd already packed what he wanted the night before. It was important to keep his contacts happy, he believed, and so the basket now sat on the passenger seat, precariously balanced on top of the necessary gifts he was bringing for the trip.

Li Yang, it was said, had her ancestry in emperors' lines, the Tang and Sung dynasties. It was not clear if this was true, and Stein didn't really care. Li had been there when he needed her. She could have her roots in any history she wanted to think she did, and he would nod and pretend belief.

Stein put his hand to his left shirt pocket. The paper was there, and he wasn't sure why he instinctively checked to affirm it. Scrawled across the front was a set of directions that seemed unnecessary. How hard could it be when there was one road before him? But Li Yang had quietly insisted he take the paper along. Sure, he could do that, if it would keep her happy. What could it hurt? She would think she had done a good thing and be none the wiser when he emptied his pocket later on.

Now the engine was shaking, and its power called through the gas pedal. He pushed down firmly, swore under his breath about the fog, and began his climb.


Republic of Tea Lychee Blossom tea photo, by L.L. Barkat.

The Book I'm Not Writing, Rachel 2

It is amazing how much time I spend thinking about a story I am not writing. It is even more amazing how anxious it makes me when I consider how lazy I am (a true novelist would perhaps look forward to figuring out such details as a story's time period and accompanying artifacts, would look forward to finding the answers to questions such as, "How do you, in fact, make a shoe?").

I do not want to answer these questions or dig for the details I would need. I remind myself that it's okay. I am not writing this story.

Still. This particular character has been hanging out in my head for a good seven years. When I first met her, she was strolling in the park, walking a dog. She looks the same. She is just as lovely and wears the same grey shoes. She is not nearly as bold. Her name is the same, and her Jewish heritage has traveled with her, but she is hanging out with sparrows instead of Golden Retrievers.

She is still meeting an Italian man, but he was much older before and rather talkative and married to... well, the same woman he will be married to here... except this wife is younger and I think she might even dance the Tango. Or something like that. Unfortunately, that is a detail I may have to put in and then take out when I discover the story's time period.

But that should be okay, right? Because how much work can it be to revise a story you aren't even writing?

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Part One, if you haven't read it yet.

Pigeons were cooing just outside the window, and one appeared to be nesting in the geranium box. The geraniums should have been red this year. Last year she’d planted pink, and the year before a brilliant purple. But this year it was time again for red. Instead, a pigeon was staking her claim, making a place for little ones where the geraniums should be blooming.

A hand crossed Rachel's forehead and slipped a lock of silver hair behind her ear. It was Francis.

“Fifth Saturday, remember?” she said to him.

“I remember, Nana.”

Rachel lapsed into silence. The pigeons were still cooing and the sky was that kind of blue that makes you wonder if the whole world is floating in a universe of water.

A voice came from the other side of the room, “What’s she talking about, Frankie?”

“Oh, the fifth Saturday. That was the day she met my mother.”

“She loved your mother, yeah?”

“Adored her. Not like how it was with my father. I think he scared her with his quiet ways. But my mom. Maria! They were like a tree and its shadow; one moved and the other bent to follow. You don't come by a friendship like that more than once in a lifetime.”

It was true, thought Rachel. She and Maria had met on the fifth Saturday.

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Do you have a story you aren't writing? Add your link below and link back here from your post. Thanks! :)

The Book I'm Not Writing: Inheritance

Isn't it freeing to simply play at writing? I think so. That's why I'm not writing a lot of books. You should not-write-a-lot-of-books too. In fact, at the end of this post, if you'd like to link up a brief piece of a story you aren't writing, that would be fun. :)

This particular story I'm not writing had its beginning at a restaurant. I overheard a conversation and thought, "Oh yeah. Perfect." That was about 10 years ago. I have a lot of stories like this that I haven't been writing (just wait and see). Some of them I might follow a little more. Like last week's. Maybe I'll post a continuation next week. In the meantime, here is another book I am not writing...

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"I could make it work. I know I could."

George tilted his head, thinking hard now, calculating the worth of the Dodge sitting in the restaurant parking lot.

She picked up a packet of foil-wrapped butter and slowly pulled back neat corners. The butter was too warm, so when she went to gather it on her knife, it slipped onto her black lycra pants.

Traci swiped at it, only pressing the mistake further into stretch-cloth. She sighed quietly and reached for another gold packet. But now he grabbed her hand and stopped it, pushing her palm flat to the table before she could get her fingers around the new pat of butter. His own meaty fingers toyed with her wedding ring.

"If I sell the Dodge and your ring, plus everything that's in the apartment, and we borrow some money, I could make it work. I always wanted a ranch. How hard can it be to raise cattle? Come on, Traci, you know I can do it. You know it."

She looked down at her unbuttered bread, then off beyond him, to the exit sign at the back of the room. If she could just look straight into his green eyes. Or excuse herself to the bathroom. Or something. Her hair caught the light so that instead of looking like the vivid red she'd asked for at the beauty shop, it morphed into an odd dark pink that looked unreal.

The waiter came now. He set down a broad-noodled alfredo with peas, for her, and an oversized steak for George, who stabbed his fork into it before she even picked up her own fork. Her bread was still unbuttered too, and would stay that way for the meantime, since George must have taken the last portions while she was looking at the exit sign.

And now it was suddenly too late. She hadn't looked George straight in the eyes, and her food was waiting, and George was chewing fast and hard.

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Do you have a story you aren't writing? Add your link below and link back here from your post. Thanks! :)

The Book I'm Not Writing (yes, I stole your title, Bradley)

What could it hurt to write some fiction? A scene here and there? Besides risking a little embarrassment because it's not my best suit, what could it hurt? I remember Julia (sorry my anti-Julia friend) saying that any one of us could write a novel just because. Just for the heck of it. I'm anyone, aren't I? Not a novelist by any means. But someone who wants to play...

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The first thing she noticed were his fingers. Or maybe his fingernails. They were cropped to the tip, ridged and beaten. Yet despite their obvious wear, for a shoemaker’s nails, they seemed remarkably clean. This is the first thing she noticed.

The second thing Rachel noticed was the way he looked at her when he put the bag containing Edward’s shoes on the counter. It was not an unusual look by any means, and not too long. It was simply a flicker across black, like something remembered. Then it was gone.

She fumbled through her worn leather purse to gather the appropriate payment, which she placed on the counter in exchange for the paper bag containing Edward’s shoes. The bag crinkled and muttered as she gathered it against her chest, and she glanced at the wall of shoes behind the shoemaker. So many shoes stacked in little openings, like orphans awaiting adoption. Brown and black, grey and navy, and a pair of red shoes off to the side. Who did they all belong to, she wondered. Then she blinked and said, "Well, thank you, Mr. Delano."

The transaction complete, and thoughts of what Edward should need for lunch beginning to crowd in, she walked out into the day. Elm shadows played at her feet, gray against her gray flats. Her shoes were rough at the toe, perhaps because she sometimes scuffed the ground when she got distracted looking at this or that sparrow. Who knows why Rachel’s shoes were actually in need of repair. It could have been any number of reasons—their age, her gait, the wrong leather, maybe even that she never polished them. But she suddenly understood what needed to be done. She would wait, though, for three Saturdays. And then she would go.

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I think it is good for me to write in arenas where I'm a beginner. It reminds me how tentative a person can feel when putting his words out there for the world to see. It reminds me to be very encouraging, accepting, and careful when I work with new or shy writers. I think it is good to write something I have no plans of writing... to simply play.

(As an aside, my older daughter just gave me some feedback: "Well, it's not very bad." Yes sirree. This is definitely embarrassing. :)

Egg in the Window photo, by L.L. Barkat. Apologies to Bradley J. Moore for stealing his title. :)