February 2011 – Mystery, fantasy and romance at the dangerous ends of the earth

Money: Or horses are like tomatoes (and cats are, too)

By Karen Abrahamson | February 28, 2011

This blog is about money. It may be very short. Or long.

You see, money and I have a long and troubled relationship. Yes, I’m doing okay at the moment, but it hasn’t always been so good. I can recall winters of eating mostly potato soup, or venison the neighbors donated to me and my spouse. I still remember the night our ‘house’ almost burned down when the wood heater (we couldn’t afford a furnace) overheated. The house? A converted garage cum chicken coop (not kidding). So I’ve seen some good times and some bad and right now things are less bad than others so I’m doing the not-too-smart thing and running off travelling. I guess my mom didn’t teach me so good.

So what does this have to do with travel and writing? Because I’m planning out the money for my Peru trip a number of money rules have started reverberating in my mind. I thought I’d share some that relate to travel and writing.

Tibetan monks after ceremony, Labrang, China (1998) Photo (c) Karen Abrahamson

My writing mentors, Dean Wesley Smith and Kristine Kathryn Rusch have some wonderful blogs about writers and money. One of their major rules that all writers should remember is that ALL MONEY FLOWS TO THE WRITER. What this means is that writers should not be paying faux publishing companies or shady agents to edit and revise the writer’s manuscript. True enough. Those scam artists who offer to publish your book if you only send them cash, are preying on new writers who don’t know that rule. But in this day of digital self-publishing a variation on the rule is, Money flows to the writer unless you are paying someone to edit your manuscript for self-publishing to ensure that you are publishing the highest quality possible. It might also mean that the writer who doesn’t want to learn how to make book covers, spends some money to have a creditable cover made for the book. Any writer prepared to do this needs to consider how long it is going to take to recoup the dollars spent, but also consider whether their time is better spent doing what they do best – namely writing.

All well and good, but unfortunately the rule with travel is that ALL MONEY FLOWS FROM THE TRAVELER. First there was the cost of the jacket I wrote about. Then there are new hiking boots (mine just died), and then there are the things like camera memory cards etc. Those are all the sundry costs before you go.

And then there is the cost of travel. As a relatively seasoned traveler, I like to plan for costs before I leave, because I don’t like depending on plastic when I’m overseas. First of all there’s the fact plastic runs up debt. Then there’s the fact that overseas use of credit and bank cards is more prone to problems. Picture this: In Delhi I went to my bank (an international that has branches almost everywhere) and plugged my bank card into their bank machine. Said machine eats card. On a Sunday. In the afternoon. Monday I call said bank and am told that said card had been reported stolen. I ended up spending almost 24 hours phoning my branch back home to get things sorted out.

Nope, cards are great backups, and cash may be good to get the best rate in exchange, but give me a good old traveler’s check any day. American Express or Thomas Cook are my best friends when I travel and are less tempting to thieves, as well.

But budgeting for travel can be a problem. I always plan for my expected costs and then double the amount , but even that has left me high and dry a couple of times. For instance in Cambodia, two years ago we budgeted about $2,000.00 for a bit over a month. I suppose that would have been fine, except inflation had hit Cambodia and everyone wanted everything paid in American dollars. Cash. I was never so happy to get back to Thailand where the costs seemed more manageable and we could use plastic because the time in Cambodia had eaten up the money faster than I’d figured. So rule three and four: ALWAYS EXPECT TO BE OVER BUDGET and ALWAYS HAVE A CONTINGENCY.

In the same vein, expect there to be times when travelling cheap is just too painful. I recall sitting in a grotty hotel room in a town in central China after a nightmare journey down the Yangtze River. My traveling companion and I were both close to tears and the thing that held us together was the fact that the next morning we knew we had the cash to lug our backpacks down the street to the nicest hotel in town (even with a swimming pool). When you travel YOU MUST BUDGET ENOUGH MONEY TO ALLOW YOURSELF TO RECOVER. Travel is hard. Backpacker travelling is even harder and if you don’t build in a comfort buffer you will find yourself hating your trip and travel. That’s not what it’s all about.

My last rule comes to me from a previous spouse who might have never travelled but he was wise in common sense and the way of horses. He was an old cowboy and superb horseman and he told me that horses are like tomatoes: they are just as perishable and just as easily ruined. Hard to believe, I know, but a 1,500 lb equine is so darned prone to injury and illness that they can go from magnificent dressage horse to fox feed in next to no time. Illustration: A very good hunter jumper mare cast herself upside down in a ditch on my property. We got her out, but the poor thing was exhausted. Did she just stay down until she regained strength? Oh no. She fought to get to her feet – so hard she broke her leg. So I learned the hard way to insure my horses and now, believe it or not, I have medical insurance for my cats, too. It has paid off, because Big Ben has already had far too many misadventures like shattering a toe in his carry cage.

Humans are no different. So the last thing a traveler wants to do is be caught somewhere having to shell out big bucks to cover medical costs. My parents had a lovely trip to Palm Springs end on an unfortunate note when my mom had heart troubles and ended up hospitalized. On my trip along the Silk Road an acquaintance on the bus behind ours had his arm shattered when his bus went off the road. Thus my last rule of travel is ALWAYS TRAVEL WITH MEDICAL INSURANCE. Let me leave you with my litany of past injuries and illnesses as illustration:

• Tropical ulcers in East Africa that required medical attention and frequent debriding (something you do not want to go through) and antibiotic shots for months.

• Food poisoning in West Africa that required my hotel staff to bundle me up and get me on a plane out.

• Food poisoning in Burma that (thankfully) required nothing (except a very rapid-fire rejection of the food).

• Two sprained ankles in China that made the next month and a half a nightmare ride.

• Walking pneumonia in India.

I hate to think what it would have cost if I something REALLY bad had occurred.

I guess I’d better be careful hiking the Peruvian mountains.

Big Cats and Small – Nurturing what we have

By Karen Abrahamson | February 26, 2011

Male lion, Serengeti (1994) Photo (c) Karen Abrahamson

I’m trying to write this blog with a 16 pound cat yelling in my ear and grabbing my sleeve in his teeth to get my attention. He’s an insistent, not-so-little guy who knows when he needs me and I don’t know anyone who can completely ignore him. Frankly, some people wonder how I put up with his delinquency and I know that Bengal cats are frequently turned in to the SPCA for exactly the types of behavior Ben exhibits, but Ben is just asking for what he needs – in this case a few minutes of my time for pats and belly rubs. I can react to it either by ignoring him or doing what I signed on for when I adopted him – nurturing him just as he meets my need for company.

Sometimes, when I’m extremely busy or in the heat of writing, my first inclination is to ignore him—as much as you can ignore a 16 lb cat gnawing on your sleeve – but lately I’ve come to accept this is part of having this wonderful companion and that the best I can do is nurture him, just as I need to nurture myself as a writer.

For me, nurturing does not come natural. I once described myself as having been AWOL when they handed out the Florence Nightingale gene. I’m regimented in my life and always seem to put the hard work first, before I get to the things that nurture my soul, and giving cats attention. Thus, at this moment, I’m so swamped it feels like having a life just comes second. Of course, my life is what I’m using up while I’m consumed with work. Somehow I forget to take care of the little things – like spending five minutes of play with each of my cats. So little and yet it has such wonderful pay-off. There is just nothing like thick fur and a purring, ecstatic kitty-face to make me smile and relax from the rat race.

So as writers we need to give ourselves time off. We need to do things like stop to listen to the first birds of spring, read good books and go for walks alone or with friends, or just have a bubble bath – whatever makes you feel whole again. Nurturing yourself as a writer also means giving yourself a chance to celebrate what you have. The skills you’ve gained as a writer, and the determination to keep writing – or the fact that you’ve started or finished a short story, a novel, whatever you’ve written—should be celebrated. Writers shouldn’t let defeat and negativity make them blind to those assets and accomplishments.

This is a lot like recognizing the wonderfulness of the two little demons I cohabit with. They forgive me when I ignore them and are so thrilled when I pay attention.

There is something wonderful about cats, whether a placid housecat or the great wild cats. They both have something mystical about them. Or maybe it’s mythic, except there is such an element of the clown in most cats. I’ve never seen a tiger in the wild, and I likely never will given the decline of their population. But I have been fortunate enough to see a mother cheetah teach her youngsters to hunt and have watched their playful lounging after they gorged. I’ve seen elusive leopards hang limp in a tree after gorging on a gazelle that must have outweighed them. And I’ve seen lions – prides of them – sprawled on a sunny kopje in the Serengeti, and playing silly games in the game parks of Botswana. I remember one young female who thought it was fun to push over a small tree. Every time she did, it smacked another lioness in the face, and I swear the youngster knew exactly what she was doing. A lot like Ben knows what he’s doing when he takes a swipe at one of my pictures and sends it sliding.

Yup. Got my attention, little man.

I read a sad article in the Vancouver Sun newspaper the other day. It was about African lions and how they may disappear from the wild within 10 years. Their numbers have fallen from about 150,000 in the wild ten years ago to about 20,000 total today. IN ALL OF AFRICA. The article went on to say that once the numbers of a species fall below a certain level the race to extinction accelerates. I was so shaken by the article I couldn’t even read it all the way to the end in one sitting. A world with no lions? I couldn’t imagine it; or I could, and it broke my heart.

The article went on to talk about how a few National Geographic researchers and the Botswana government are working to try to bring them back in that country. Nurturing. And it made me realize that lack of nurturing is a huge problem in our world. From our children, to the oceans, to the jungles, to other cultures, to ourselves, to my cats – we are failing our world because, at least in the west, we’ve become far too focused on work and our own personal challenge to just get through it, to the point where we don’t appreciate the gifts around us.

I feel so fortunate to have heard the grunt-grumble roar of a lion and to have seen the magnificent sprint of cheetahs. To have smelled the dusty cat-scent of a lion as it nosed the side of the jeep I was in, and to have looked into its amber eyes. There was something there: intelligence, but different than a person’s. Something wild and foolish and wonderful that I see mimicked in Ben and Shiva’s gaze. And we’re at risk of losing the great cats unless we take the time to nurture the other inhabitants of this world.

So I’m going to step away from my desk and write a check to the National Geographic Society. I’m going to find out what I can do locally to help the environment.

But before that, I’m going to go pat my cats.

Planning for the Long Haul

By Karen Abrahamson | February 21, 2011

Planning a trip to Machu Picchu means planning for the long trek up hill. It means choosing a guide, choosing equipment, it means readying yourself so you don’t break down on the climb. Planning for a novel is much the same, but that doesn’t mean you have to plan everything step by step. Not in the least.

For the trek, I want to know that I’ll be comfortable and generally where I’m going. Yes, I have a basic equipment list, but whether it will be appropriate for Peruvian weather conditions needs consideration because I’m going at teh end of the rainy season. For writing, planning means something similar—not a plan that guides every chapter, but a plan that will generally guide me through the arduous process of writing a novel.

Old Moslem Fortress at Sintra, near Lisbon, Portugal (2005) Photo (c) Karen Abrahamson

So how do I do that? I wrote previously about the process of selecting a guide for Machu Picchu (here). To plan for the trek involves gathering information. Who are guides that operate at Machu Picchu? Who is reputable? Before the internet it was much harder to find out. I used to go to my travelers’ bookstore and ask them what they knew, or else talk to other travelers. Those old favorite guidebooks Lonely Planet and Rough Guide provided helpful suggestions that I often took advantage of and often I’d arrive with only a general idea that I needed to find a guide and then would go on a search when for a good one when I arrived.

Finding a guide when planning a book is another thing altogether. I used to plan my books chapter by chapter and used wonderful chapter outline sheets that had been provided by my mentor, Dean Wesley Smith. These helped me focus on the important points of a chapter:

1. Point of view.

2. Where are the characters at the start?

3. Where are the characters at the end?

4. How have things changed?

5. How have things gotten worse?

I wrote many novels based on those chapter sheets. What I found was that often the novel started with those sheets, but gradually the writing took over and the sheets were put away toward the end of the maniscript. If people are relatively new to writing, or if they have a hard time finishing a novel, this can be a helpful tool because the sheets help you outline your novel scene by scene, chapter by chapter. But I found that I gradually outgrew the need for the sheets. I sort of look back at them as training wheels that helped me learn what chapters and scenes are all about.

From there, I began to plan books in large chunks. I knew the characters got from here to there and bad stuff happened, but I didn’t write it down. Or if I did, I just jotted brief notes. I once heard Nancy Kress, the wonderful science fiction writer; speak of writing a list of all the things you know need to happen in the book (or all the scenes you want to put in, or all the events you want to happen). She then suggests that you take this list and put the scenes/events along a story arc, thinking about try/fail sequences (everything always gets worse) climaxes, and the three-act structure. I’ve found this very helpful, not to start a book, but to help clarify my thoughts when I’m lost in the thick of the action.

For my last three novels, I’ve tried something much more spontaneous. I’ve tried the write-into-the-mists form of writing—something romance writers call ‘pantsing’ (writing by the seat of your pants), which is much more akin to how I like to travel. I start out with a general idea of where I want to go and allow the destination to guide me about where I want to go. With writing, I start with a general idea of what the story is about. This allows me to enjoy the experience of the story, much as the potential reader will. A mystery writer friend recently finished drafting a novel and told me she didn’t know who the killer was until the last two chapters. Let’s face it, if the writer is surprised by where the story takes her, no doubt the reader will be, too. To write in this manner I have to let the character speak to me and at any fork in the story I ask myself what would the character do? So the noval arises from the character.

To write this way is an exploration. As I write, events or facts arise that mean I have to go back in the manuscript to insert information. Whether you do that at the time, or wait until the first draft is finished is your choice. I either keep a notebook, or keep a running list, of ideas or things to insert or change at the end of the manuscript. Other people I know, use the comments function to make notes of changes they need to make.

Increasingly, I’m noticing that research is one of the most important aids to my writing. But this is another blog on its own.

So planning for a novel, or a back-packing trip to the Andes, both require you sort out your planning method. Both require you to do your research, and if you are lucky, one will bleed into the other so your trip feeds our writing and your writing feeds your trip.

Destructive Forces, or The Beauty of Making Things Worse

By Karen Abrahamson | February 19, 2011

I’ve mentioned in previous posts about the destructive force of Ben and Shiva. Ben has his penchant for getting in behind breakable objects and purposefully shoving them off of shelves. (I have much less brick-a-brack these days.) Shiva has developed a penchant for shredding paper—cardboard—plastic. Anything he can sink his little teeth and claws into and I constantly am catching him at this lovely trick on things like – oh – my business license, or a manuscript stacked and ready to be mailed out.

I wonder if editors would understand a few chewed corners.

Hmm, maybe they would just figure I have mice, or was particularly nervous about mailing this one out?

Ruins and fromages trees, Angkor, Cambodia (2008) Photo (c) Karen Abrahamson

Anyway, in the midst of trying to preserve my manuscripts and various and sundry pieces of memorabilia from my travels, I got to thinking about destruction and its place in our lives and writing. At the same time a writer friend of mine sent me a link to some fantastic photos of the erosion and destruction of Detroit . The photos are bizarrely science fictional and evoked thoughts of Night of the Living Dead, Twelve Monkeys and War of the Worlds, and yet they are absolutely and utterly beautiful with their haunting look at faded glories. Maybe it’s just me, (but I think not, given the hordes of other visitors to places like Angkor, and Athens and Machu Picchu) but I am fascinated not just by the vestiges of what was once great and has now been destroyed, but also in the cracks in the great edifices and the things climbing through from the other side. As I watch the people of Egypt struggle for democracy I think of new life, like the fromages tree that grow from the Angkor ruins (one is on my website home page). Or maybe it’s the wisdom and laughter that shines through from an age-ruined face.

Buddhist nun at Mingan, Mandalay, (1997) Photo (c) Karen Abraha

What does this have to do with writing?

A writer’s job is to make things worse and to recognize that destruction is life. This is hard, because even though I think we are attracted to destruction—fascinated by it, even, if you notice the way traffic slows next to a serious traffic accident—we hate to inflict it on other beings. We are fascinated and repulsed by news of a slaughter of others. Haiti’s earthquake, for example, or Hurricane Katrina, or the Tsunami that wiped out so many in Malaysia and Thailand. And yet as a writer our hands pause as we destroy our character’s beloved possession, or reputation. We hold back from hurting them physically or mentally. We take heed of the cardinal rule and DON’T kill their cat or the dog or the horse, but we don’t do other things to wound them either.

Which makes our writing boring.

Think about it. Are we interested in a character skipping happily through life? No. Even all those Jackie Collins novels of the beautiful people carry their own carnage. That’s what makes us read those novels and all those T.V. magazines: seeing the crumbling of those magnificent edifices of the cults of personality.

So it’s not just thrillers and action stories that should have destructive forces, whether they’re external or internal to our characters, we need them to ignite the passion in the reader and make them want to read on. The ‘oh-no’ moment. The tension of anticipation of when the lover finds out that they’ve been cheated on. The implications when a character finds their home, their family, their life (insert your character’s loss here) is gone. We want to know and we want to understand how character’s overcome, because we all have those forces in our lives and we want to see what comes after.

The difference is, in our writing (unlike all life situations), the edifices of the character’s old life may crumble or burn, but something lovely and fragile and – more – arises from the ashes. Like that fromages tree. Like the wisdom I see in those old eyes.

So get back to your destruction when you turn to your keyboard. I’m going to keep an eye on that chewed box in the corner to see what loveliness arises.

Creative Energy – Fatigue and Being Fit Enough

By Karen Abrahamson | February 19, 2011

Living with two Bengal cats, I’m astounded by their boundless energy. These are two year old cats. They should be getting more sedentary, but I swear a hamster wheel would do them both good. The galloping of paws on my hardwood floors, and the boundless, easy leaps up to ceiling-high windows is enough to exhaust me after a day of work. I think cats keep a perfect writer’s schedule. They work when they want. They play when they want. They sleep when they want. And when they know they’re in trouble they can vanish like the wind before you can do anything about it, leaving you to deal with the aftermath. I wish I had their energy. Of course I also know cats who only get up for a trip to their food dish, and whose ankles groan every time they leap down from the couch.

Which is a lot like what can happen to writers when they’re not fit enough.

Leaping cats of Inle Lake, Burma (1998) Photo (c) Karen Abrahamson — Keeping fit provides the energy to do amazing things like teach a cat to do tricks like the amazing temple cats of Inle Lake, Burma (1998) Photo (c) Karen Abrahamson

It might not be leaping tall buildings, but writing is far more arduous than most people think. Physical ailments abound amidst writers: Carpal tunnel syndrome; bad backs; stiff necks and shoulders; not to mention the issue of midriff spare tires. All of which means that writers need to take care of themselves.

I’m a perfect example of someone who hasn’t always done so. I had my desk set up with the computer screen slightly off centre and ended up throwing out my back. I was immobilized with pain for six months (still writing using voice recognition software – now that was hilarious) before the Canadian Health Care system took pity and gave me a disc-ectomy. Thankfully the pain went away.

l spent a week at a writing retreat and turned out 50-70 pages a day. The result was carpal tunnel so badly that numbness ran from my hands right up to my biceps for about a week. Even now, three years later, typing any more than about 20 pages touches off the problems again.

Both of these issues were things I could have foreseen and both were issues I could have guarded against, but that’s the problem. Unless you are doing this a lot, many people don’t understand just how unnatural sitting in a chair is, and just how much repetitive stress our hands are under when we type.

So what do we need to do to keep going?

As professional writers, or even serious beginning writers, we first of all need to treat ourselves and our art seriously. To do this work we need the tools to do it. One things we can do is to set up our writing space properly, seated facing straight ahead, feet flat on the floor, with appropriate supports for our hands/wrists/arms and bac. Writers need to try out ergonomic keyboards, raised screens (that are directly in front of them), and appropriate chairs. Some people wear wrist supports, or small balls in their palms that help keep their hands in ergonomic positions. Remember, if you are aching when you are writing, or after you’ve written, something is wrong. You have to fix it if you are going to write long term.

The second action writers have to take is exactly that—action. Writers who believe that their only responsibility is to keep writing are mistaken. Yes, you need to keep writing, but you also need to keep fit to do it. As I said, sitting places stress on the body, and the fact that writing is sedentary means that old spare tire can easily seep in around our middles. The more weight you put on, the easier it is to remain sedentary. You’re more tired carrying that weight around. And so you don’t exercise and so you gain more weight.

This vicious cycle is one of the banes of my existence. As someone who still has to support themselves through a day job, the issue is exacerbated by the fatigue from the job that discourages those trips to the gym. The only defense a writer has is to take action. Drink water to keep hydrated while you write and that will, at least, force you out of your chair. Do isometric exercises at your desk or while you’re up taking care of that water. Best of all, take breaks and go out for a walk, a run, to the gym, kayak, play tennis, swim. Anything that will get your heart rate going.

This sort of activity not only gives your heart a workout, it also gets the endorphins pumping. You’ll find you are less tired and have more energy to devote to the writing—something a professional or the serious beginner needs to have.

If you can’t find the time for regular exercise, then try something like setting your writing space somewhere you have to walk up or down stairs to reach both the kitchen and bathroom. Then drink that water.

Or you can do things like I do to get myself fit: I set goals to hike the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu. Or work up a sweat chasing after a couple of hoodlum cats that have just swiped my pen from the desk.

Zen and the Art of Travel

By Karen Abrahamson | February 14, 2011

This topic came to mind as I was running around through the frantic holiday seasons. Too many people, packed too close together and all of them trying to get too much done too fast under too much pressure. No wonder there were so many unhappy faces. I’ve seen the same look of tension on my face when I’m in the midst of a novel and things don’t feel like they’re working well. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve called writing colleagues and gained their help to talk me through days of angst and despondency.

The same sort of tension can be experienced when you travel.

Ranakpur - old temple worker and the Zen of repetitive work (2000) Photo (c) Karen Abrahamson

You’re in a strange place, with a strange language so you can’t express yourself and as a writer that’s something you need to do. You don’t understand the logic or the cultural norms of the place and the people and that alone is frustrating. The fact you don’t necessarily know where you are, or how to get to the place you want to go, all add to the tension and vulnerability a traveler feels. This not knowing how to get from point A to point B (or even what point B should be) are both anxieties a writer feels, too.

So how do you react?

I know that both at home and abroad, when I’ve felt vulnerable and tense I’ve barked at people—and usually felt bad about it afterwards. The trouble is, we North Americans feel quite comfortable showing our displeasure at something. Often it’s a matter of blaming someone else for how we are feeling, but that’s not the way it is in most parts of the world. In many parts of the world just showing such negative emotion is considered rude—or worse.

My lesson in this came travelling in Burma. There I was, all 6 foot 1+ of me about to travel by local bus from Yangon to fabled Mandalay. I was careful. I did the right things. I made sure I was on an air-conditioned vehicle, had a seat by the window, and that I wasn’t at the rear of the bus. Well the best laid plans oft go awry, they say, and so it was for me. The first clue was when I arrived at the bus. Sure I had a window seat and I wasn’t at the rear. Nope. I was seated over the left front wheel well which meant that all the foot room in the seat was gone.

Okay, tension there.

Then it turned out my seat partner was a stout little man who was wide enough (or I was – it’s all a matter of perspective) that it was impossible for us both to lean back in our seat at the same time.

Okay, frosted now.

So we leave Yangon with me fuming and travel north into the dry lands south of Pagan and the air conditioning broke down. (Did I mention that NOTHING works in Burma?) And then the bus overheated so we had to keep stopping to cool the engine. And on. And on. And on. For hours.

I was furious. I was fuming.

Until I noticed something.

That stout little man never once leaned back and he never once stopped smiling.

He shared his foot space with me and every time we came to a stop, he made sure I got off the bus, got food and found my way around. The entire group of passengers took me under their wing, laughing when I doused my head under a water tap, being gracious when I shared my snacks (Good old M and Ms travel exceedingly well) and making sure I got back on the bus in time. What I learned from those people was patience. When my legs cramped up from their position or the heat became unbearable, I just had to look at my Buddha-shaped travel companion to remind myself that the Buddhist philosophy is that all things pass away, and so, too, would this bus ride.

And really, in the whole scheme of things, how bad was a twelve hour bus ride anyway? I made friends, I saw the country and I learned a vital skill that helps me to this day in my writing and travel.

Patience.

For every bad day, for every time that the words have to be pulled like hot coals from my brain or my wrists burn with pain, or I’m lost in another country, this too will pass. And when it’s over I’ll have learned so much along the way.

Voice: Kitchen Cupboards, Gleaming Mountains, and a Peeled Pommelo

By Karen Abrahamson | February 12, 2011

For all that Ben and Shiva are full brothers, they are very different cats with very different voices. Shiva, though much smaller, has the loud Siamese yowl that can shatter sleep like a siren. He’s a skitter-bug cat that loves to play and will make a toy out of anything he can get his little Velcro paws on. His favorite playtime is diving under the pillows on my bed and waiting, like a jaguar, for something to move so he can attack. He also likes to sit on top of the kitchen cupboards peering down like a vulture.

Sweet and evil (2009) Photo (c) Karen Abrahamson

Ben, on the other hand, is much quieter, with mews more like muttering to himself, but there are dark waters swirling in that cat. This week the challenge has been that he has figured out how to open upper kitchen cupboards – in particular the one above the fridge that holds the wine glasses (maybe he’s developed a taste for the vino?). He’ll throw anything off the fridge that I put up to block him. The scary thing is I actually know when he figured out how to do it. I saw him watching me as I was getting something out of the cupboard and the spark of idea absolutely flashed in his eyes.

While both of these cats have watched me open cupboards numerous times, both of them (and me) come from different perspectives. Shiva comes from the perspective of “that’s interesting that she can do that”, while Ben comes from the place of “If she can do that, so can I – and no one can stop me”. One comes from the place of a gentle, clowning soul, while the other is just, well, evil? Me, I just want my wine glasses safe in the cupboards, all of which illustrates the underlying concept of character voice – different perspectives regarding our environment.

This is different from a writer’s voice. A writer’s voice comes through as style. A writer’s style may grow and change, but you can tell a Stephen King no matter when he wrote it, or under what name. Same goes for a James Lee Burke. There’s a certain attention to detail that comes through no matter what he writes.

But character voice can be the bane of new writers. What is it? How does it work? What’s all the fuss about when I can write a beautiful descriptive scene, or a terrific action sequence?

Character voice ilustrates the different world view each character possesses, just as Ben and Shiva and I each have different perspectives about my kitchen cupboards. I’ll share with you two different stories from my travels that illustrate how two people can live through exactly the same thing and have totally different experiences.

I lived in Thailand for a while and while I was there I travelled around with a wonderful Thai friend named Nin. Now, one of my favorite Thai delights was the large citrus fruit called pommelo. For anyone who hasn’t tried them, they are like a grapefruit only much larger, drier, and sweeter, and their rind is about an inch thick. As a result they are delicious, but incredibly labor intensive to peel.

So Nin and I were driving with her fiancée and we stopped and bought a pommelo and she began to peel it for me. Not that I was in any way incapable of peeling the darn thing myself. She not only peeled the rind, she then carefully performed delicate surgery on each segment to release the luscious flesh from its skin. Then she passed each delicious piece to me or her husband-to-be.

Now that I think back on it, it was one of the most beautiful examples of the Thai ethic of total focus on performing each action perfectly in order to provide pleasure to others. At the time, however, I was embarrassed. I thought she didn’t think I was capable of peeling a pommelo, and I felt uncomfortable having her serve me when I could have peeling the fruit myself. Yet to Nin this was just being the lovely woman that she was, and gifting a friend with something she loved. Two different people experiencing the same thing, but coming from different cultures, our understanding of the event meant something dramatically different.

What draws the eye: Little girl in Kashgar, (1998) Photo (c) Karen Abrahamson

The other example took place along the Silk Road in western China. My friend and I were smashed side by side on an interminable bus ride across the Taklamakan desert and far in the distance across an eternally flat land, I saw a bluff gleaming in the low angled sunlight. I watched it change iridescent pinks, blues and mauves as the light fell in the late afternoon, so I hauled out my notebook and waxed on and on about the wonder of beauty in the midst of all that desolation. When I finished with my eloquence, I turned to my friend, a fellow Canuck and mathematician, and pointed out the mountain and prepared to launch into my ode to beauty. What did she say when I pointed out the mountain?

“Sure. It’s chalk.”

A perfect example of how different our minds worked. And that’s character voice. While I waxed poetry in my journal she was busy examining the visual data to determine the geological makeup of that mountain. The jar of the dissonance in our experiences shut me down – until I burst out laughing.

If only I could shut Ben down so easily.

For the Writer: Travel Open

By Karen Abrahamson | February 7, 2011

Dawn at Holy Amristar's Golden Temple (2000) Photo (c) Karen Abrahamson

Reviewing my travel journals for excerpts in this site reminded me of facts I had long ago forgotten. Like the fact that Moroccans have a unique way of holding their hands when clapping, or the way my Mauritanian guide, Akbar, poured his mint tea by holding his red teapot at least three feet above the small juice glasses we drank from, or the way the Rajasthani women regarded my small gold earrings as symbols of an ancient royal family. Alone, these aren’t particularly earth-shattering bits of information, but in a story they provide unique bits of authenticity about a country that help establish a place for others.

To me these are the small bits of place – I call them the gifts – you can only gain by travelling. So how do you go about gaining these insights?

My basic philosophy is to travel open.

This speaks to being willing to be where you are:

1. Coming from our fast-paced culture it can be easy to set a schedule that keeps you moving on to new places all the time, rather than taking the time to get to know a place. When I traveled in India, for the first month I hired a car and driver to help get me to all the spread out places I wanted to go. They expected me to spend a day in each location. Instead I spent the time traveling around the state of Rajasthan, and only that, when the company I had hired the driver from had advised that the one-month period allowed most tourists to visit Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and one other state.

But the way I traveled I was able to spend two evenings as the sun went down, with a hotel owner and his friends as they played evening ragas (songs to the time of the day) on sitar and tabla on the rooftop terrace overlooking the lake of Udaipur. I was able to meet an Indian woman in an old fortress town and be invited home for dinner with her family. I was able to sit beside the pool at the golden temple of Amritsar and chat with young Punjabi women. On other trips I was able to stay an extra day and walk the long, pristine beaches of Zanzibar. Or decide at the last moment NOT to go to Beijing, but to return to the Tibetan highlands of Lamusa instead.

2. Traveling open also means not being consumed with your own needs all the time, and not being afraid. Some of the ugliest travelers I’ve seen are the people who won’t take the time to adhere to local customs. Like the tourists who won’t remove their shoes at a temple door. Or the tourist who complains vociferously about the native food not being like it is at home. Note to tourist: YOU ARE IN ANOTHER COUNTRY, HERE!

I once had a lovely Indian guesthouse hostess practically cry with pleasure when I said I would love to eat whatever her family was having. I was invited for dinner every night and had some of the best food I ate in India. She even took me into her kitchen and showed me her spices. As a result of being open to things like this I’ve been invited into Tibetan tents, and taught how to make chapti. I’ve sipped tea with retired Ministers of Culture who were trying to preserve their country’s ancient arts, and I’ve had a man in an empty Cairo street turn and give me flowers in welcome when my first inclination was to be afraid. All of this when I rarely spoke the language.

Rajastani kitchen (2000) Photo (c) Karen Abrahamson

Traveling open means being willing to put aside your own schedule to take advantage of the many gifts along the way. Like the young woman at Burma’s Schwedigon Pagoda who told me her sad life tale that inspired a short story of mine.

Most of all, traveling open means traveling with a smile. That, and a writing notebook or computer, are the most important things you can pack when you travel. One gets you the memories and one helps you keep them. These are the gifts that fuel my writing.

Destructive Forces, or The Beauty of Making Things Worse

By Karen Abrahamson | February 5, 2011

I’ve mentioned in previous posts about the destructive force of Ben and Shiva. Ben has his penchant for getting in behind breakable objects and purposefully shoving them off of shelves. (I have much less brick-a-brack these days.) Shiva has developed a penchant for shredding paper—cardboard—plastic. Anything he can sink his little teeth and claws into and I constantly am catching him at this lovely trick on things like – oh – my business license, the cardboard box in the corner, or a manuscript stacked and ready to be mailed out.

I wonder if editors would understand a few chewed corners.

Hmm, maybe they would just figure I have mice, or was particularly nervous about mailing this one out?

Anyway, in the midst of trying to preserve my manuscripts and various and sundry pieces of memorabilia from my travels, I got to thinking about destruction and its place in our lives and writing. At the same time a writer friend of mine sent me a link to some fantastic photos of the erosion and destruction of Detroit . The photos are bizarrely science fictional and evoked thoughts of Night of the Living Dead, Twelve Monkeys and War of the Worlds, and yet they are absolutely and utterly beautiful with their haunting look at faded glories. Maybe it’s just me, (but I think not, given the hordes of other visitors to places like Angkor, and Athens and Machu Picchu) but I am fascinated not just by the vestiges of what was once great and has now been destroyed, but also in the cracks in the great edifices and the things climbing through from the other side. As I watch the people of Egypt struggle for democracy I think of new life, like the fromages tree that grow from the Angkor ruins that I have on the home page of this web site. Or maybe it’s the wisdom and laughter that shines through from an age-ruined face.

What does this have to do with writing?

Which makes our writing boring.

So get back to your destruction when you turn to your keyboard. I’m going to keep an eye on that chewed box in the corner to see what loveliness arises.