Plugging away on a draft

My writing projects these last few months have been short stories. I’m using what I learned in the short story writing class I took through One Story this past summer, which used core principles of dramatic structure to map out conflict, and I think this is helping me make my stories more engaging for readers, following an arc that feels natural if somewhat predictable. I think that I am growing as a writer.

The last few stories I’ve been writing are connected with gardens, plants, nature. It’s been interesting for me to see in myself where my mind is going, what kinds of topics and questions I feel drawn to writing about. What are the conflicts I see around me in the world that spark interest, but also that I feel confident enough to put my pen to?

In my English Literature course I’m teaching, we are reading Aravind Adiga’s The White Tiger, the story of a poor man from rural India who finds a way to personal success by murdering his boss. The White Tiger won the Booker prize in 2008. I was watching an interview that Adiga gave in 2014 in which he shared some of the inspiration behind the book.

Adiga says that the question that started him down the path to The White Tiger was a simple one: Why is India so safe? That is, why, despite a deep class divide and a culture of servants having a high level of access to the homes of the wealthy, is there comparatively little crime? He talks about interrogating the role of violence in Indian history, wondering under what circumstances the relatively nonviolent status quo might change.

At the moment, I’m wondering about the relationship between people and nature, between a manicured lawns and wild spaces, about social convention and individual decisions, and into this comes questions of mental health, interpersonal relationships, and I love the way all of these questions blend and layer on top of one another, and somehow out of this web we’ll see if I can keep pulling a few stories.

What are the questions on your mind these days? What projects are you working on? I’m sorry I’m so bad at responding to comments. I really do want to hear. I’ll try to do better with this.

Best wishes for the coming weeks,
Jimmy