blazing enigma

Everybody complains about chapter one and endings, and I get it - that's your big money moment, make or break. That's what matters the most to the reader. But I think in terms of sheer difficulty for the writer, in terms of individual chapters, the very beginning is where projects live and die.

Chapter one is an idea. I have probably thirty or forty chapter ones sitting in my computer that never went anywhere, or were cool thoughts but didn't have a plot behind them. They were scenarios with no inertia. One chapter a story does not make.

But the second chapter, that's where things start to change. Chapter two, in most books, is pure setup. You're not just writing the immediate aftermath of the first chapter, you're writing the whole damn book in a few thousand words. That's hard. It takes a LOT of mental energy and requires you to do the actual work of plotting, whereas chapter one you can just dash down whatever inspo you've got whether it goes somewhere or not.

That's tough as hell, but I don't count two chapters as a story either. Two chapters is still nothing but an idea. Chapter three is where the character takes their first action influenced by the inciting event, makes their first move, goes from a person to a protagonist. Chapter three is where you stop telling the reader what could be and start showing them what is. I think you can have the best idea in the world, but if it can't carry itself to chapter three, it's not a story. Certainly not a novel, yet. And that's why the beginning of a project is so critical, because you're mega frontloading and roadmapping a lot of what comes later right at the very beginning.

as I sat on the train heads started turning, people gasped then went unbearably quiet. a cloud of black smoke rose dense and deadly from the upper floors of the high-rise building.

when I stepped out onto the plattform there was not a single noise as we stood in horror, a horror we could not avert our eyes from. there it was again, the pain in the pit of my stomach, this dizziness, those glassy eyes.

the pain of watching something or someone burn down, burn out and knowing that there is nothing you can do to help. so I stand and stare until moments which felt like hours later, the sirens of fire trucks rang in the distance. I noticed that I had held my breath. only once the sirens got closer I exhaled with the slight relief that it might not be good but it’s never too late.

Also this happened for some reason:

Well Minx our queen said it all:

i learned the hard way drawing this that NO, my shoulder is NOT healed yet 

This is a map of Asia. North Americans, you may notice this map is not solely comprised of Japan, Korea, China and Thailand. People in the UK, you may notice India is not  a continent. That is, if those of you who generalize entire continents can even pinpoint India on a map. Indians are Asian, gasp! And not all brown skinned people are Indian, also, gasp! There are an alarming amount of people, of all ages, from all backgrounds, who seem to be unable to process this.

I’m ethnically Asian. Since Asia is an extremely large continent, I could be from any number of countries. I am neither from India, China, Korea, Japan or Pakistan, yet not so surprisingly, I am still Asian. 

Yes, there are commonalities across regions, through the conflation of cultures, colonialism, globalization, transnationalism and movement of diasporas. Sometimes these are all the same thing. Rickshaws, rice and curry can be found across the continent. But let’s not overgeneralize. You can also find Buddhists, Catholics, Muslims and Hindus across Asia. Cantonese Speaking Chinese Muslims! English Speaking Indian Jews! 

No, we are not all the same. Orientalism? (Please look up Edward Said for basic concepts) No thank you. 

To the folks wondering about Russia being included, I want to mention that the cultural debates and angst about that has been going on for CENTURIES. While France has been pretty fetishized all the way back from Peter the Great, there is no question that we are not Europe, even with that influence showing really obviously in historical seats of power like St. Petersburg. Nonetheless, the whole country was under control of the Mongols (The Golden Horde) from roughly 1242 to 1480, and that left an enormous Mongolian and Tatar heritage that remains to this day. The ancient Scythians are huge in the cultural imagination as well. And besides… look at the Russians who are outside the standard “Kievan Rus” phenotype (which most folks assume is how all Russians look.) 

Here are three of the 30 distinct ethnic groups in Siberia alone:

Buryat grandfather, photo by Alexander Newby

Evenk children, photo by Evgenia Arbugaeva