Writing Rituals

Writing Rituals
Friday, September 20, 2024 by SHARON ARPANA EDWARDS

Categories: Friday's Fiction / GUEST AUTHORS

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SHARON ARPANA EDWARDS

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My first book, Pioneer Boulevard, named for the Los Angeles street known as Little India, is a collection of ten stories set in LA’s Indian community. After its release in June 2013, I conducted a number of author talks at public libraries, bookstores, and other venues across Southern California. I would typically read an excerpt, then open the floor for questions. Some of these appear in the bonus Q&A section at the end of the Tenth Anniversary Edition, which was published in 2023.

Someone at a bookstore talk once asked me what rituals I employ when I write. At the time I could only answer with reference to Pioneer Boulevard, but I am still employing these rituals more than a decade later because I find them so useful.

One of Webster’s definitions—“an act or series of acts regularly repeated in a set precise manner”—highlights the consistent, habitual nature of a ritual. Writing rituals are habits we develop and consistently deploy to make the writing process easier and more enjoyable. I did different things at different stages while writing Pioneer Boulevard during my MA in Creative Writing at Keele University, UK, and I hope some new writers will find these three things helpful.

1. Starting Fresh

When I needed to begin a new story, I would clean my writing space. I simply could not begin the first draft if my desk was messy—especially if the clutter was left over from the previous story. Perhaps it was a way of preparing myself for the task ahead. Or maybe my brain, knowing that the task ahead was going to be arduous, was procrastinating. Either way, my desk was never as spotless as when I was about to begin a first draft. I still like to clean my workspace before I start a new piece of writing, even though I know it’s going to get messy once the drafts start piling up.

2. Creating Atmosphere

To create a particular mood for a story, the one thing I almost always did was listen to music. There’s something about music that can transport you instantly into the world you have in mind. While writing “Some Sunny Day,” which centers around an elderly English lady in Redondo Beach, I almost continuously listened to the song that inspired that story: “We’ll Meet Again” by Vera Lynn. For “A Language Barrier,” which has an undocumented worker from Mexico as the romantic lead, I listened to Marco Antonio Solis. And for certain scenes in the title story, set in a gold shop in Litte India, I turned to the sitar.

Apart from music, I would also imagine a physical environment over and over. The second story in the collection, “Second-Round Hopeful,” takes place on a scorching July day in San Fernando Valley, and I was writing it in England in November, just before the first snowfall of the season. For the final scene, especially, which is set in a very sensory environment, I had to use my imagination a lot. Which is not a bad thing for a writer to do.

3. Walking Away

When it comes to being stuck in a difficult place in a story, I have found that the most helpful thing is to walk away—and often I go for a walk. Physical movement, especially outdoors, refreshes our body and soul, and when we are refreshed we are more receptive to what the Lord wants to drop into our mind.

Among the most significant walks I took while writing Pioneer Boulevard was when I was stuck at a critical juncture in the book’s most important story: “Nectar of Life,” which is about a woman with an unplanned pregnancy. While she won’t have an abortion because she believes life is sacred and children are a gift from God, Tracey still has to deal with a certain dilemma related to her unborn child.

I knew how the story would end, but I didn’t know how to get there. After a particularly frustrating writing spell the day before the story was due, I sensed the Lord leading me to go on a walk on Keele Drive. As I walked along the road, the critical scene dropped into my mind. I wrote it quickly after returning to my dorm room and emailed the story to my tutor, novelist Joe Stretch.

At our next tutorial, Joe told me he had wept while reading that scene. Since he had never said that before, I knew my walk had been successful, and I became more intentional about cultivating the habit. It proved extremely helpful while writing my subsequent books, including my forthcoming first novel, which is slated for release in October.

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An Excerpt from “Pioneer Boulevard”

The first customers were waiting on the doorstep even before the shutters were raised to indicate that business was about to begin. From his coign of vantage behind the cashier’s counter (shaped like a horseshoe for obvious reasons), Niteshbhai gave them a quick glance to gauge whether they’d prove lucky. A South Indian woman and a freckly redhead, both dressed casually, neither particularly good-looking, the Indian woman clutching a frumpy, auntyish handbag, and slouching (something familiar about that). The redhead carried herself better. Looked more chic too, with one of those slim wallet-like purses slung across her torso, the kind Kavita took when she went shopping. (She said she only needed a credit card and a lipstick, and give her her due, she always used both.) Would these two women prove lucky?

Hard to tell, decided Niteshbhai, turning his attention to the six saleswomen who were scurrying assiduously between the counters, wiping, straightening, arranging, rearranging, the loose end of their gold-bordered saris pleated and neatly pinned at the left shoulder. He barked a command or two (barking so he wouldn’t have to bite), impatient for the day’s race to begin. And the race, as Niteshbhai liked to think of his jewelry business, was not some piddly hundred-meter dash, a sprint that took mere seconds and was over before you could make out what was being endorsed on the runners’ shoes and shorts. No, it was a marathon.

How impressively that word rolled off the tongue of his thoughts. Let him think it again. A marathon.

Longevity. Stamina. Distance. Staying power. That’s what this was all about, thought Niteshbhai, looking with pride around the shop, which his father (God bless his memory) had opened back in ’86 when he was just nineteen, just Nitesh without the honorific bhai. (His buddies still called him Nito. Like n-e-a-t-o, Kavita said.)

The late Hemantbhai Manibhai Zaveri’s gold-framed portrait, freshly garlanded and incense-sticked, hung in the most prominent spot in the shop, directly above the cashier, as though he were watching it from above. He’d migrated from Ahmedabad at forty-five, basing the risk on what he’d heard about LA’s growing Indian community, ignoring his wife’s protests and, for the first time, his astrologer’s prognostications. He invested all of his energies, some of his capital (some he borrowed), and every ounce of business acumen he’d inherited from his goldsmith father (and every nugget he’d acquired on his own), to make Hema Jewelers what it was today: one of the most prosperous stores in Little India.

Pioneer Boulevard—that strip of color, that cauldron of spice in the city of Artesia—could boast of only one bigger jeweler, a shop that Hollywood celebrities were said to patronize. But let them have their American idols, Niteshbhai was content with his Indian clientele.

Pioneer Boulevard: Los Angeles Stories, Tenth Anniversary Edition (Los Angeles: Consonant Books, 2023), 49–51.

About the Author:

Sharon Arpana Edwards is an Indian-born author in Los Angeles. A follower of Christ since childhood, she enjoys sharing her faith and praying for others. Her books include Pioneer Boulevard: Los Angeles Stories; The Blessing of Melchizedek Devotional: 100 Reflections on Faith, Favor, and the Fruitful Life; and There Once Was a Man Who Suffered: The Book of Job in Limericks. The Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign for her forthcoming first novel, The Superiority Contest: A World Traveler’s Tale, launches on Wednesday 9/25. For more information, please visit her website, sharonarpana.com.

Tenth Anniversary Edition - https://a.co/d/9DcMCUg
Webster's definition - Ritual Definition & Meaning - Merriam-Webster

Kickstarter campaign - The Superiority Contest - A World Traveler’s Tale by Sharon Arpana Edwards - Author — Kickstarter

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