It’s been two months since I originally posted about Books for Bequia requesting donations of books at all reading levels for the Bequia Community High School. Elaine Ollivierre, the principal, reports that the school has received one box of books by mail from Mrs. Elanne Smith and says, “Thanks!” for that donation. But the school still needs many more books to fill its shelves. Please check my original post for what we’re hoping will be sent - but, really, any donation at all will be welcome. I hope many people coming to Bequia over the winter months are planning on packing a few books in their luggage to donate to the school.

My good cyber-friend, Darcie Hossack, who for the past month has been aka mennogirl just passed over the 50,000 word count! So she enters the National Novel Writing Month winner’s circle along with me!

Congratulations, Darcie! Now… that wasn’t so hard, was it - sedating your tough inner-critic for 26 days?

I recently received an email from Ann updating what she, Steve and Receta have been doing since she last reported in. The following is reprinted with Ann’s permission:

We really loved Trinidad, and as our time there ticked away, we found
ourselves burning the candle at both ends to fit in everything we
wanted to do. Being at a marina (and a very nice marina at that) was
a real treat for us, and we had a rude awakening when we started off
again and had to disconnect ourselves from shore power, shore water,
shore-powered air conditioning, morning newspaper delivery to our
side deck (except when it was raining, and they actually put the
paper right in our cockpit so we didn’t have to get wet to retrieve
it), and a free ice machine steps away….

But as much as we enjoyed those luxuries, being back at anchor again
is WONDERFUL. It’s hard to match the evenings here at Hog Island,
Grenada, where the piping frogs provide dinner-hour music, and then,
later, the moonlight sparkles on the water, and the wind whistles
through our hatches making for wonderful sleeping.

Still, we have a “tabanca” for Trinidad. This became my favourite new
Trini word that I learned during our stay. Technically, it means the
forlorn, abandoned feeling that comes with the end of a love affair,
driving you to drink — but it is used to refer to the feeling for
their homeland that afflicts Trinis who have moved off the island. We
already have a plan for dealing with our tabanca: We’re sailing back
to Trinidad in mid-January and staying through Carnival. To a person,
our Trini friends tell us that you absolutely HAVE to experience
Carnival in Trinidad once in your life. And we decided this was our
year to do so.

In no particular order, here are some of the other things that have
given us a tabanca for Trinidad:

The area where all the marinas are located is essentially a suburb of
bustling, dirty Port of Spain. But despite its closeness to the city,
it’s a national park. One of my favourite daily events was the
departure (at dawn) and the return (at dusk) of the wild
orange-winged parrots that roost in the trees. They squawk loudly as
they fly by, always in pairs, and when the sun catches them, they
show their brilliant green even when high overhead. Lovely.

Steve read two newspapers a day there, which not only kept him up to
speed on the politics (the national election was the first week of
November, and the political machinations were quite unbelievable),
but also on musical events. We got a bit of a reputation in this
regard, and when we put out the word that we were going to some
event, we could fill a maxi-taxi (12 people) faster than you could
say “calypso”. Late October marked the start of parang season: Parang
is the Venezuelan-derived Christmas music, sung in Spanish to the
accompaniment of cuatros (small four-stringed guitars), maracs
(maracas to us, but also called, appropriately, shak-shaks), and a
box bass (literally, a wooden box, from which a string is extended on
a stick), plus ordinary guitars and percussion. For those who find
conventional carols annoying and overdone (read: our Steven), parang
is the perfect antidote. This Christmas music is also meant to be
danced to, and our cruiser group made quite a stir at an event WHEN
WOMEN DANCED TOGETHER. (Some of our menfolk being quite reluctant in
this regard.) Very un-Trinidadian.

My favourite, though, are the steelpan orchestras. Their music and
sound bears almost no relation to what’s produced by the steel-drum
players that entertain tourists during happy hour at bars throughout
the Caribbean. A full steelpan orchestra in Trinidad has more than
100 pans, — even a casual performance by one of the orchestra’s
“show bands” has more than 50 — and the sound is absolutely
thrilling when heard live. Trinis take their steelpan seriously,
discussing the results of the annual “Panorama” (steelpan
competition) and the arrangers (of the steelpan compositions) the way
we discuss sports and sports stars. And each band has it’s loyal
followers. We became regular attendees at panyard “limes,” and other
performances.

Trinis LOVE to eat, and eat well, and “doubles” are probably
Trinidad’s national dish: essentially a curried chickpea sandwich on
deep-fried roti-like bread, topped with mango relish (kuchela), hot
pepper sauce, and diced fresh cucumber. I know what you’re thinking.
But trust me on this one: They’re delicious, and addictive — Steve
could eat four doubles at a crack, but you know what he’s like. (Most
people settle for two.) Just remember to ask for “slight peppa” so
you don’t fry your taste buds. Unfortunately, doubles are only sold
from roadside/streetside stands that spring up in certain places at
certain times of day and disappear a couple of hours later once the
doubles are all sold. You’ve got to know where to look when…..or be
ready to screech to a stop when you see a little knot of Trinis on
the street all eating out of paper-wrapped parcels. Doubles are a
popular breakfast food, and a popular late-night pick-me-up, and as
with pan bands, Trinis have strong opinions as to which are the best.

Rental cars are decidedly cheap in Trinidad, which is reflected in
the quality of vehicle: We affectionately called each of our rentals
either Shitbox du Jour (SdJ) or Shitbox de la Semaine (SdS),
depending on the term of the rental period. (It took us 2 rentals to
realize that if you want a rental where everything works, YOU HAVE TO
PAY EXTRA. How come Avis and Hertz aren’t onto this???? Anyway, I
digress: The rentals helped us go farther afield, including to
Tobago: We took the SdS with us on the fast ferry (it takes about
2-1/2 hours and only costs $50 TT, about $8.50 Can., per person –
went for four days, and travelled all around the island. Very
different from Trinidad: More tourist-driven, but way less developed
and way more laidback. Great beaches, great birding, beautiful
anchorages (albeit with an occasional propensity to roll), and great
curry crab and dumplings. But now that we know the lay of the land,
we plan to return with Receta in a couple of months.

Our last SdJ — this one a serious junker — took us to the town of
Paramin. Way up in the hills north of Port of Spain, Paramin is where
the herbs for the island’s “green seasoning” are grown, and where a
collective of ladies turns them into seasoning to be sold in the
supermarkets. The road is so steep and roller-coaster-like that
normal vehicles can’t handle it, let alone a SdJ. You have to park
your car in a nearby town and take a 4WD jeep-taxi from there. (The
fare is $3TT, about 50 cents. One of the jeeps we took on our last
visit had a prayer posted next to the driver, called the “Paramin
Drivers’ Prayer”: “Heavenly Father, we ask your blessing as we drive
the hills of Paramin. Because the roads are steep and winding we live
with danger every day…..” Very reassuring, as we hung almost
vertically on the mountainside….. First visit, we watched the
ladies grind and blend the herbs — two types of thyme, parsley,
green onions, pimientos, chadon bene (related to cilantro) — and
shared their homemade fruit wines with them (banana and guava, in
case you’re curious) as they waited for the pot of green seasoning to
boil; we were given a gift of home-made pastelles. (Pastelles are
delightful little food packages consisting of a piece of fig –
banana — leaf, with a thin layer of cornmeal pressed on it, topped
with a filling of minced beef mixed with olives, capers, raisins, and
“secret herbs and seasonings”; the whole thing then folded up into a
little flat envelope — leaf on the outside — and tied up with
string.) We returned for a second visit and were taken to see their
“gardens” (read: agricultural plots) on the almost-vertical
hillsides, and bought some sorrel wine, a Christmas specialty. I
don’t think it will replace cabernet at Receta’s table but, hey, you
gotta try these things.

Ann and Steve, you’ll be happy to hear that a Trini has set up a “doubles” stand on Bequia. He doesn’t sell them every day, but his doubles have become so popular with Bequians, including Dennis, that the man usually very quickly sells out of all that he’s prepared every time.

I completed my NaNoWriMo novel this afternoon with a healthy word count of 51,929! Now I am totally exhausted. By next November though I should have forgotten all about these past three weeks and be ready to tackle another one.

Here it is, the end of Week Three in NaNoWriMo and I have managed to write 44,665 words - only 5335 left to write in order to achieve a total of 50,000! And if I can continue to churn out the daily totals of over 3000 as I’ve done so far this week, I should be finished in two days. I might not completely finish the novel, which continues to grow as I write it, but I will pass the 50,000 word mark well before the end of the month. Hurrah!

And, by next Novemeber, I’ll have forgotten what a slog this has been and will probably get talked into entering it again…

… while not allowing them to get fed up during NaNoWriMo…

My friend Darcie Hossack, also known as mennogirl, has written a food column for Kamloops This Week that focuses on the need for all NaNoWriMo participants to make sure they feed their inner writer in a fast, yet nutritious, way that not only doesn’t cut into precious writing time by calling for a great deal of fussy preparation, but also keeps up their strength in a satisfying way, and those important creative juices flowing. You can read the whole column here.

And, an update from me… as of today, my total word count stands at 33,026!

Today marks the halfway point of my attempt to write a novel-in-a-month while participating in NaNoWriMo. I’m very pleased to say that it is going well for me so far, and that yesterday I passed over 25,000 words to slide into today with a good cushion for beginning the second half of the month. My word count total now stands at 27,059! I’m happy with the way the story is evolving, and the characters seem to be taking me in new, and interesting, directions that I hadn’t expected. But, most importantly, I haven’t yet run out of story line. So 50,000 words now appears to be do-able rather than daunting, and I think I’ll have a darn good novel to edit at the end of the month - I hope!

This week’s Writers Island prompt is Friendship. It’s timely as the novel I’m writing for NaNoWriMo is titled Forever Friends and is about two girls who become best friends in kindergarten then have a falling out at the end of high school that completely splits their friendship apart. They meet up in later life and find out exactly what it was that happened to cause the lifelong rift.

So, for this week’s contribution, here is the prologue of my novel-in-progress. Please remember this is only a first draft and it has had little editing. That process will come later, in Dec., when I’ve completed the 50,000 words for NaNoWriMo…

Prologue

My mother was always making me late. And then there was the added guilt.

“Pack your bags,” Maggie used to say. “Looks like you’re going on another guilt-trip.”

Mom had been sick, on and off, since I was born. I suppose that was my fault since she had me later in her life when everyone said she was a fool, and having a baby at that age would probably kill her. But she told me when I was older that finally giving birth to me had been like a gift from heaven after all the miscarriages she’d suffered. I was to be her one and only child. Well, I may not have killed her at birth, but she never let me forget that I would eventually be the death of her for various other reasons, mainly to do with being an average teenager. She was wrong on there though. She almost outlived all of us. But looking after her—because Dad said we couldn’t afford to hire a nurse every time Mom suffered one of her “episodes”—became my job in the summertime whenever I wasn’t in school, especially once I hit my teens. And that situation, as a teenager having to look after my mother, was almost the death of me.

And was why I was constantly late. And why, when I did finally get to the beach that day to meet Maggie and Gary, I saw something I wasn’t meant to see. And why, after that moment, my whole life changed irrevocably.

***

It was hot for early June. Perfect for lazing around on the beach for the afternoon. But Mom had had a turn in the morning, so I had to wait until she was asleep again, well after I’d served her lunch, before I could throw on my bathing suit and a blue terrycloth cover-up, and race out the door of our house.

“Mrs. Smith, Hi!” I shouted on my way past the next-door neighbour who was sitting on her verandah. “Would you please check on my Mom at 4:30?” adding, “Thanks” over my shoulder as I kept running down the street, just so she wouldn’t have a chance to refuse.

I was already over an hour late. Maggie would kill me. She could never do anything unless I was with her, always acting like we were joined at the hip. I knew she would have been sweltering in the hot sun, not daring to touch a foot to the water’s edge without her Mae – me – by her side. She had been the one who said it was urgent, that she needed to see me that day, had even taken the afternoon off work so we could meet. I didn’t know what could have been so important that we had set a time, like it was an appointment or something. But then it crossed my mind - she also hadn’t bothered to come looking for me either, to see what was taking me so long. So it couldn’t have been that important, I figured.

School had just finished for the year and my graduating class was enjoying several days of freedom before final results were received, and summer jobs began. Those were the halcyon days of the early seventies, when we were all high school heroes, a string of academic, athletic, and social successes and achievements notched on our belts, but with life’s real triumphs still ahead of us. Well, ahead of some of us. Others would likely drift through the rest of their lives just as they had drifted through high school.

The beach wasn’t far from my house, five minutes away, just at the foot of our street. I hit the boardwalk running then slowed the pace to catch my breath, not wanting to look like I was too eager. I scanned the sandy stretch, our favourite spot, between the foot of my street and the lifeguard station. Maggie was there, sitting on a log facing the lake, and away from me – she hadn’t seen me arrive. But she wasn’t alone. Gary was with her.

Now, Gary and I had a “history,” as we all called it then – kind of an on-again-off-again dating relationship. We were considered “a couple” by all the other students all through high school, but lately things had kind of fallen off again – his fault not mine. Maggie had always said, right from the beginning when Gary and I first met, that she didn’t like him, didn’t like being the third wheel in our relationship all the time. And because Maggie and I had been best friends since forever, I kind of sided with her in the end, and had finally given Gary the boot before the Easter weekend. So now I was surprised – no, that’s too mild… I was shocked to see Gary lift his arm, reach behind Maggie, and set it on her shoulder, drawing her closer into his side. She leaned her head on his shoulder, causing me to stop in my tracks to wait, not knowing what to think.

When they finally broke apart, I gave them a few moments before shouting, “Hey!” Then I slowly crossed the stretch of beach and raised an arm in salute when Maggie turned around. She quickly waved back and turned again to say something to Gary. He jumped up from the log, looking about as guilty as a dog caught with the family’s evening roast in its mouth. Maggie meanwhile pulled a tissue out of her beach bag and was wiping her eyes with it when I finally came up next to them.

“Sorry I’m late,” I sneered. “Looks like you’ve been keeping busy though, while I was still stuck slaving over my mother.”

Gary stammered, “It’s not what you think.”

“Yeah, right,” I said. Then I ripped off my cover-up. “I’m going for a swim. Looks like you could both use some cooling off, too.” I angrily kicked off my sandals.

“Mae,” Maggie called out to me as I strode down to the water’s edge. “Please. Like Gary said. It’s not what you think.” I ignored her. My best friend. Ha!

“Gary. Go tell her.”

I turned and held up my hand at them. “I don’t want to know. I’ve seen as much as I need to. Thanks for nothing!” I shouted over my shoulder as I began walking again. When I reached the shoreline, I took a few steps into the gentle waves, working my angry toes into the sand. My hand automatically went to my throat and fingered the gold heart on its chain, a gift that was never removed, even when swimming. Now I was having second thoughts, but finally decided to leave it around my neck. I immediately plunged into the still-chilly lake water, moving quickly away from shore with several strong strokes. Rolling over on my back, I floated, gazing up at the sky, willing that Maggie and Gary would be gone the next time I looked at the shore. But there they were, still sitting on the log, deep in what looked to be a heated conversation. Maybe even an argument. Good!

What I couldn’t figure out was why I’d been blind to the warning signs. Maggie had always told me she hated Gary because he had come between the two of us, ruining the perfect friendship we’d had since kindergarten. But it was obvious now that there was something going on between them. I wondered how long that had been happening then tried to drive all thought of it out of my head. I was still furious, but actually, to tell you the truth, when all was said and done, I didn’t really care.

I turned back around and began swimming out further into the lake, not mindful of the cold, or that that day marked the beginning of the end of my friendship with Maggie.

Partially imposed by a power outage that began promptly at 8 a.m. Sunday morning, but also willingly, I wrote nary a word for NaNoWriMo yesterday. However, I did enjoy a great day of sailing, food and wine while on a day off on Paula and Roger’s boat with Heidi, Marty and Neil. Marty jumped into the captain’s seat from the get-go, Roger happy to relinquish command, and said he quite enjoyed sailing again for the day. It was beautiful weather too with a good stiff breeze for most of our outing. We sailed south to anchor at one of the uninhabited islands off of Bequia. Paula unpacked the contents of her fridge to feed the six of us.

We were very satisfied with that excellent lunch and the several bottles of wine and rum which evaporated over the course of the afternoon. All that and a good, long swim in the lagoon and I was in heaven! Then we sailed back, Marty still at the tiller, and here we are just after a successful navigation of the gap between the far end of Bequia and West Cay…

A great day! And not too much of a sunburn…

This week’s Booking Through Thursday question:

Would you say that you read about the same amount now as when you were younger? More? Less? Why?

Definitely, I don’t read as many books as I did when I was young, when I made trips to the library almost every week. As a publishers’ sales rep, I hardly read anything that was not on our list of books to be sold to the booksellers. My focus was narrow. We moved to Bequia eleven years ago, after retiring, and I packed along about 16 moving-boxes of books I’d accumulated with which I refused to part. Dennis built me a “wall of words” (as Marty calls it) - high shelves in both the living room and kitchen - to store them all. For the first years I read voraciously, but also worried (a bit paranoid…) that I’d soon run out of good reading material. I even made up a reading schedule so I would give every book a fair chance, and even began rereading (and reassessing) old favourites. (I know, very anal of me, but then I also have all of those books shelved in a rather strict personal ordering system.) So I continued to “acquire.” I now have stacks of unread books - but books that I do plan to eventually get around to reading - on the shelves and the floor of the closet.

I got off to a good start 11 years ago and literally consumed books at a great pace. But when I began writing my own stories, then studied writing and publishing online, I found my focus (not to mention my time) narrowed, and I became much more selective in what I read. I never liked reading trashy novels in the first place (a degree in English Lit will do that to you), but after studying editing I’ve now become even more discerning and can spot bad writing a mile away. If I could just figure out how to keep that same bad writing out of my own novels…

But back to the main part of the question - No, I definitely read less now than I did when I was younger. It’s a matter of quality being more impotant than quantity. I’ve become much more particular and prefer to read good books slowly, to savour the words and stories written by master authors, to see and try to understand how they work their magic. Just as Tom Conti’s main character in the 1983 film Reuben, Reuben said, I don’t know why anyone would ever want to learn how to speed-read; I’d rather learn how to slow down my reading so I can enjoy every word (or something like that…). Great movie about a writer, by the way. It’s a pity that it doesn’t seem to be available any longer.

And then there’s this to look forward to… A friend in his seventies told me that the best part about getting older and suffering from a failing memory is that you can reread all of the books you read when you were young and it’s like reading them for the very first time - because you don’t remember a damn thing about them!

Griz’ favourite author seems to be Cormac McCarthy. That kitten has good taste!