November 5th

Posted on by Palo Stickland

November 5th 2100 words total 9,437

There is still no final result for the Presidential election though Joe Biden seems to be inching towards victory.
Bearsden Writers met this morning to hear about the General Article submissions for the Scottish Association of Writers competition. Three members have experience in entering, and they gave us much useful information. We adjourned for half-an-hour to write an article. I spent a lot of time editing the piece even after our feedback session was over.

The secret of completing the 50k words for Nanowrimo in thirty days is to type as fast as you can and not to edit. I’m now at 1955 and I’ve added some writing that I’d written before. And I’ve counted the submission article although it’s not finished.
In my family history, the earliest date I refer to is 17th Century when I remember the Guru who wrote the Sikh marriage service as my parents were married in November 1944. Then, I note that in the various census of the 19th Century, organised by the British Raj, the Sikhs had a lower ratio of male to female than Hindus or Muslims. My grandmother told me about an old woman, a neighbour of ours, who died screaming that the granddaughters she had killed at birth were at the end of her deathbed – sad times.

November 4th

Posted on by Palo Stickland

1922 words today. My fourth day total is 7337 words.
My writing friend, Leela Soma, who has an online book launch tonight for her novel, ‘Murder at the Mela’, asked me for more details of how I was finding writing every day. My eyes become gritty if I look at the computer screen for too long. I stand to type, this means I tire quickly, so I write for short periods. Half-an-hour to forty-five minutes at the most. We should only look at a screen for twenty minutes before looking away, but I’m not looking up the whole time. I change the page to fit width and height and make no changes to the text. When I finish a section and leave my laptop, I place the word count at the end of that piece of writing. On a card, I write down the next sentence to set me writing when I return. That’s it. The writing must flow, and preparation is the key.
Now, that I’ve completed my word count for the day, I can go back to my knitting (it’s a poncho) and the television which is all about Trump v Biden today. When Trump won four years ago, I was shocked as I had expected Hillary to win. The United States was not able to vote a woman into power then, and this may be repeated with Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. I am disappointed.

November 3rd

Posted on by Palo Stickland

1770 words today.

I spent some time this morning in sending money to a family in India. The mother is my house cleaner. The father migrated from Uttar Pradesh to the wealthier Punjab to work as a farm labourer. He lived in our field hut and spent his days helping my brother-in-law. He married a girl from his home village and brought her to live in the cabin. When his family grew, my brother-in-law gave him his tractor shed to live in. Thirty years later he is still there with three sons, two daughters-in-law and five grandchildren under-aged eight. The elder daughter-in-law has a skin disorder which looks to me like shingles gone awry. It’s scaly now, and I think it’s on the mend, but she has had it for three months, and it’s all over her even on her hands. The medics in Chandigarh say she’ll need a series of injections and treatment at the cost of over £600 which this family don’t have. They’ve sold all they could for the (not so helpful) treatment so far. And, with Covid-19 work is scarce and no furlough system. We are not the same religion, but they are like family. Of course, I sent them more than medical fees.

November 2

Posted on by Palo Stickland

I realise that I will have lots of research to cover when I look over this month’s writing. With that in mind, I drove over to my 94-year-old mother’s house. She is living by herself and very aware of the Covid-19 restrictions we are living under. My excuse for breaking the ‘do not visit indoors’ rule is that she is a vulnerable person, and I am one of her carers.

I found her watching a snooker ‘champion of champions’ tournament. She likes snooker, which made me feel as if I was an intruder. I told her I wanted to talk about some of the past. Firstly, I said I had a vague memory that she had witnessed a public hanging in her home village in India. I kept using the Punjabi word ‘phansi’ but when I changed to ‘hang’ she said ‘Oh, I remember Manuel. there was such a fuss because afterwards, they said he might have been innocent then they stopped the hangings, and they used the electric chair.’ Now, I am wholly diverted from my research, and it seems I have misremembered, and there was no public hanging.

Okay. I asked about making money from spinning cotton thread and how much could you earn? That was better. Then I wondered about the Sufi dervishes, and she said she had witnessed them in the village. And, who was at my birth? She said it was her mother and her cousin, the same as at my brother’s birth. And then her wedding and I was wrong again. It was a one-day wedding because her father was blind and didn’t earn money. I had explained the whole three-day wedding rituals in my writing. Research does not always go your way.

Writing in November 2020

Posted on by Palo Stickland

November 1st and I’ve written 1800 words. I’m being guided by the idea of Nanowrimo but haven’t posted on their site. I did a few years ago and made a total shambles of it. I learned that the secret is to prepare, prepare, prepare.
I’m writing a sort of memoir, or everything I know about my family, which I have been preparing in my mind for years. Recently, someone said that no-one would be interested, so why would you spend time and money on photos, old movies and notes. I think people take an interest in their past when they are older, so I am going to continue.