Writing about one of your biggest fears is hard.
In my story, I am writing about the characters’ mother becoming very ill…
I am always worrying about my parent’s health and my worst fear is losing one of them suddenly, the way my grandfather was taken away from our lives.
Today after writing about her becoming sick, I had to take a moment and stop as I felt my heart become heavy for Amla and Asya.
A new human rights issue that was important to me and has bothered me for some time has unfolded into my story as I started writing today.
I read some time ago that India’s waterways were becoming a toxic stew of pharmaceutical chemicals from Big Pharma (major U.S. pharm companies), since India has cheap labor and environmental laws are more lenient. It is also where drugs can be manufactured for much, much less and then marked up and sold in the U.S. for more.
The whole idea of powerful corporations and exploitation of ‘third world’ countries is not new, but is still present and still an issue. While I started writing about Amla and Asya’s village, I started writing about their water supply, about the American companies “dumping things” in their water, of their neighbors falling ill.
Just another issue that needs to be addressed, among many. All I know is I will keep writing fiction on these issues until it’s all out there. The world needs to know.
Last August I met an internet marketer, Raj Shahani, through my fiance at his seminar that had dedicated his marketing career towards charities, good causes and towards making the world a better place by supporting organizations for human rights, environmental causes and more.
We found out today that he passed away. I am not sure how, but I do know that he was young and in his short time here, made a difference in whatever way he could.
I am understanding that this is is the larger goal of my writing challenge. That if I write about issues that raise awareness in the community around me, such as the kidnapping of young girls and illegal brothels, then change can happen.
Rest in peace Raj and hopefully the people that you met with and came across in your life will continue to make a difference in the world.
I am at a longevity conference where I have been going to lectures on superfoods, healthy ways to prevent disease and great ideas on how to boost energy.
The whole time, I’ve been drinking ‘elixers’ which have mixes of raw natural ingredients and today, I caught myself thinking of so many ideas for my sisters story. I started writing the ideas down and filled almost a whole notebook page of them.
Here’s what I figured out:
Superfoods=feel good energy=creative ideas.
That’s the equation to a good story 
Last night we went to this JAY Z concert in LA and while waiting in line for food and drinks, this guy approached me and tried to hit on me. Of course, I didn’t respond and he said “You look like one of those snobby writers.”
I almost burst out laughing.
I always thought writers had the image of being artsy, mellow, but realized I was no longer in fun loving San Diego, where no one “looks” like anything. No one would come up to me and say “You look like a writer and dentist.”
And I started thinking about it. Am I a writer? I write everyday, have a goal and love it.
Of course I am.
I have to make it who I am, just as I am a sister, daughter, fiance in my personal life, a dentist…and a writer.:)
For the last 5 days, my life revolved around packing and moving, unpacking and getting internet hooked up to our new home. I didn’t open my laptop to write, but started writing things down on random pieces of paper around me. The other day, I met with Jenny, my writing buddy, and we critiqued each other’s work at a little coffee and tea shop near her apartment. So these days weren’t completely lost, but I didn’t mean to disappear! I will be updating more soon- getting back into the groove of letting writing this story soar like my last one
For sisters out there:
Siblings, sisters and brothers, will tell me stories of when they had to tell on their sibling, when it was a matter of getting in severe trouble. Friends will tell me, My sister ratted me out or I told on my brother because I had to…
There is something about sisters that defies all that. I know sisters fight all the time, my sister and I did. Over clothes or music albums, over makeup and halloween candy, even over attention from our parents.
But we protected each other, because we could feel one another in our actions, smile, walk, body. We don’t rat each other out, we get in trouble for each other, we feel everything the other one feels. There is a connection that no one can ever describe, that the world can’t always understand that happens with sisters. There isn’t the testosterone and ego’s that brothers can possess and never admit to, not that disconnect of a gender gap between brother and sister, not the generation gap between child and parent, there’s the root of the being the same but so different, the root of something indescribable that’s present that even with the best of girlfriends, doesn’t exist. This is the bond I am trying to put into words in my story, what I am trying to capture if it can be…the true bond of sisters.
Technically, tomorrow would be my 5 day deadline for the story I just started.
With so much to write, I am realizing that I definitely won’t finish, even if I stay up all night. And with this story, I could see myself doing that, I have been on a roll. I’ve got so much to say when it comes to sisters
I am starting to understand deadlines are more for when I am not diligent with this, when I see myself ’slacking’. So for this one, I am giving myself an extension for ‘when it’s done, it’s done’, so the creativity can keep flowing.
I am trying something new with this story. Most of the stories I write are in only one perspective, one character’s experience, one view.
When I started writing this particular story though, it became easier to start it in two. Asya’s and also Amla’s.
I’ve always wondered about the connections between twins. We read about and hear about their sixth sense of eachother’s presence, pain, joy. We hear about stories of twins being in different locations completely and yet feeling the same thing or eachother’s emotions, impacts, simply even sensing one another.
I have had this happen with people close to me, my fiance, my sister, my mother. But I wonder if it is 10 fold more with a twin, if even if separated at birth like they say, they can feel eachother miles away.
Maybe, as I write this story, through my characters that keep developing, I will find out 
AN EXCERPT of what I’ve been working on…
That is how we got our names. Amla’s pure love, my strength and grace. My mother said we were her devas, her angels from Rama. Everyone looked at her with pity when they heard the news of her twin girls, but were surprised when she would be smiling at us, cooing at our white faces.
We had inherited our grandfather’s, our mother’s father, translucent skin with my mother’s jet black hair and her almond shaped hazel eyes. She said I had his strong voice, Amla had his quiet understanding. Even as a baby, she was sure everyone could hear me crying past their small village into the mountains and to the skies, but I would quiet down when I was placed next to Amla.
