WE ARE WHAT WE WRITE

I can't imagine any writer of fiction and certainly non-fiction that hasn't lived and experienced what he or she writes about. Logic tells me that, that is just a fact.

I wonder what Boris Pasternak lived that he was so inspired to write Dr.Zhivago? I suppose in a few minutes in Wiki Internet search, I would know. Sometimes I think it is better to just wonder about things and leave it at that. And not for the fact of disappointment of what you would find out. It's just that these are the kinds of things that random thoughts and daydreams are made of.

When I wrote OVERLAND for the last year and a half, the experiences I called upon happened some 20 years ago. But these were my travel experiences from which I could write with authority and authenticity without actually traveled to some of the places I wrote about. Of course some good and intensive research made up for that!

What's my point in all this?

We are what we write. I am currently pondering on what to write for my next book. I certainly couldn't write any spa novels, or paranormal romances. Nor westerns. No, my genre is travel/adventure and love stories. This is what I know, this is what I think is exciting...and I would think there's a pretty big audience for travel/adventure love stories!

If not, maybe I need to enlist in the military and get some new experiences in a different genre....yeah right! Like what army would take me? To paraphrase an old line: "I would never join an army that would have me as a soldier".

Yep, we are what we write. I know I want to write the sequel to OVERLAND. I have some pretty interesting ideas for it...can't really talk about it here until enough people have read it, then you'll know what I mean.

Then I would ask my readers what they would like to see...but that is another conversation for another posting another day.

Everybody has lived something. And I would encourage anybody that reads this post to try writing about it. Whether it turns into a book, a blog, some notes to yourself. There are some things that you will feel when done writing it: joy, perhaps even cathartic release. When you get it down on paper, it just seems to be more official, to take on truer meaning.


Does that mean whatever rambles around in our heads isn't official? Well, no. But writing it down could clear your head of what you've written, which frees your mind to think of something else...or even release some old demons or think of nothing. And then you begin to think of something else. And then you think about what you wrote and go back to your writing and write some more to where it gushes and then you'll want to turn it into something.

How exciting the process is....try it!

WHAT'S YOUR BOOK ABOUT?

When I tell people I wrote a book, the natural reaction usually is, "what's it about?" Well, sometimes they don't even ask that.

But when they do, I explain with a quick answer, "oh, well, thanks for asking. It's a love story". The typical reaction from women is "awwww". Ah, a signal of interest about the book! And then I get deeper into it for another few seconds: "Oh, "it's a travel adventure love story of historical proportions on the first days of the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan." Huh? The looks become more quizzical at that point. I should have stayed with "love story."

If I'm telling a guy, I say it's about "traveling, meeting girls, fending off foreign invaders." The quizzical looks return.

It's coming up on two years of having this idea in my head, and even though the book is out, I still have a tricky time explaining it. If I go the historical route, I lose them at this juncture: "It's a love story on the day the Soviet Union invades Afghanistan in 1979". Oh boy, does that lose them. Afghanistan?

Ask my sister, who painfully sat through the first time I told the story out loud. It was at a Starbucks in Brooklyn and it was three hours of story telling. She was either being really nice (she's my sister) to sit through it or in total rapture about the story. Or, maybe because it was raining and we had no where else to go. Heck, the movie Dr.Zhivago wasn't quite three hours but that won like a million academy awards that year.

Nevertheless, I will let the book speak for itself. As you read into it, it is gripping, it's a page turner and you do really want to know what happens next.

So, if you read the book, I am open to your ideas on how to describe it and would be happy to hear from you!

Provocative Excerpt from OVERLAND

A provocative piece from the book:

Heather was in a crowd of other Western travelers, some of them from the Magic Bus ride from Istanbul. They’d been gathered together by the Afghani army and were now being ordered on to buses. She tried to head back to the center of the city towards Danny, but armed Afghani soldiers hampered her effort. She saw the older couple who sang for them in the Iranian desert, fearful and running to get on one of the five buses that appeared to be waiting for them.

“What’s going on?” She asked them

“Just get on the bus!” The man was terrified.

They leapt onto the bus. But Heather hesitated. She couldn’t leave, not without Danny. She took two steps back towards the center of the city, and the Afghani soldiers forced her back towards the buses.

“Why are you doing this, what gives you the right?” Her protests led to more force from the soldiers. She witnessed terror in their eyes. Something was definitely happening. She pleaded with them that she needed to go back.

“No Miss, get on the bus, now.” They blocked her way and turned her around, pushing her onto the bus with the barrels of their guns.

Heather had just placed her foot on the first step of the bus when a bomb blast rocked the city. A shockwave quaked the ground. The sound of the explosion was horrific. Life went to chaos then seemed to stand still. All around, people collapsed onto the ground, jarred by the impact of the explosion. The center of the blast issued up from the direction where Heather thought Danny went. She was shaking, maybe screaming his name. No one was hurt around her. The impact from the bomb had been far enough away not to do them damage, yet, close enough that they could smell the pungent smoke wafting through the area. Gunfire and screams, and more gunfire could be heard resonating throughout the entire city.

Chaos and panic had descended. People ran for their lives, shouting, terrified of that war had come to Kabul. Heather never felt so helpless. She desperately wanted to find Danny. But the Afghani soldiers were intense, forceful. They gave her no option. If she wanted to save her life, she had to do what they ordered, and that was to board the bus, and fast.

Smoke drifted throughout the entire region. Heather became more and more despondent. She cried out, feeling powerless. She couldn’t believe she was being forced to leave Danny. She knew nothing of his condition.

Reluctantly she took the last seat on the bus. The engines revved up, and the Afghani soldiers advised all five buses to move out. Out of Kabul and out of Afghanistan.

______________________________________________________