Working on the Story

This summer I read Faulkner's short story A Rose for Emily, and ever since I have been thinking of writing a story using this "we" point-of-view. I had also been toying for a while to do something with this idea of gendered repression and food. So, this story, A Phuchka for Bindudi, is really this attempt to bring these two together. Or, rather should I say, they came together without my always planning it this way. This "we" voice is interesting: for, it lets the writer explore and experiment with the idea of a gossipy voice, a collectivity and the kinds of voices and discourses it can produce. Consequently, it can also be an effective way of throwing back this gaze on someone who is considered to be an "other" by a specific community. In doing so, the "we" voice almost always de-constructs itself too. Or, one might say, it's basically all about the writer's intervention. A writer uses that "we" voice strategically, just so that s/he can problematize the standards the "we" voice supposedly holds up as un-problemtic, un-violable, or even sacred.

So, today, I worked on one of the scenes of the story. My old hang-out place in Austin, It's a Grind has closed shop, but now there is this cafe called The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaves in the same space. I have been hanging out here for the past hour or so, trying to write this scene. It wasn't there in the original story, but Beth Ann Bauman's suggestion was, a scene like this one, might actually help the readers understand the difference between the protagonist and the other woman in the community. So, that's what I was trying to do today. I am slow these days, I can't do more than one specific aspect of a piece within a single day. My only hope is, slow and steady wins the race. And even if I am being reaaaaaaaaaalllllllllly, reallyyyyyyyy slow, it still counts. Or, at least, it counts to me!