China has FINALLY opened its doors!!

Over the past weeks, more and more I was getting urges to explore China. Now that I’m freeing-up more of my time to relax and engage more in this PRESENT experience (rather than being so far into the book-world that I’d become blind to the actual world I’m living in), I’ve been becoming increasingly eager to branch out.

Jinzhou was losing its brightness… and I was missing fresh air, the sea, the mountains, the greenery… I was seeing this city as being one compressed file of buildings, buildings and more buildings. So, Saturday night after work, I knew I had to get out of this place, even just for a few hours… Every bit of me was in need of it… my lungs didn’t want anymore pollution, my head didn’t want to feel the pressure of city life, my eyes didn’t want to see these grey buildings anymore, my ears didn’t want to hear the traffic… My overall appreciation for Jinzhou needed to be rekindled and the travel juices needed to be set flowing once again.

But before I could do this, there was something I needed to overcome. I had this little obstacle that had been stopping me from exploring, ever since arriving in Jinzhou: the language! This barrier meant I wasn’t able to read timetables, tickets, directions, destinations… I hadn’t a clue as to how the whole system of public transportation worked. I’d only been out of Jinzhou ONCE in the past 5 months!!!!! And that was with Lauren, who took it upon herself to sort our tickets and the directions. She also had enough Chinese to get us there without any problems. But, now I wanted to branch out ALONE… How would this work, if there was no English ANYWHERE and ALL I WAS SEEING WAS CHINESE CHARACTERS? How would this work, if I wasn’t able to ask ANYBODY what ticket I wanted, what bus I needed, what stop I had to get off at… if NOBODY SPEAKS ANYTHING MORE THAN ‘HELLO’. I can’t really give out, because I’m no better! My Chinese doesn’t go beyond: “Hello”, “Goodbye”, “thank you”, “you’re welcome”, “I don’t understand”, “I don’t know”, “it doesn’t matter”, “right”, “straight ahead”, “stop here”, “where”... oh and… “green tea!”… (okay, I probably do know a little bit more than this, but still not enough to understand what they’re saying to me).

So, how would this work? I had to accept help where it was being given. So I got Elaine from work to tell me where the nearest seaside was. She also sussed out my trains times online (something I couldn’t do either, as it’s all in Chinese characters). She had to write the directions as well as the questions I needed, which were only 2: “Can I have one ticket to Xing Cheng” and “Can I have one ticket to Jinzhou”… (Xing Cheng is the place I decided to explore). Everything else was just guess work… And I knew I had her on the end of the phone if I really got stuck and lost in translation.

Was I confident to do this alone? I had to be. There was no choice in the matter… Not when my sanity was at stake ;) So, off I went on Monday morning… and wouw… I was amazed at how easy it was!! I felt deaf and dumb at the ticket counter, as I gave her the note with my questions written down on it! And I was just agreeing to everything they were saying, as I didn’t know what else to say… BUT that didn’t matter. Because I managed to get myself on the right train and the right bus! And only 2 hours after leaving Jinzhou I was at the beach!!! Yay yay yay… I couldn’t believe it. It was the best day I’ve had in so long. I wasn’t lost in translation at all! And I just had to constantly remind myself of how funny this whole situation really was… because I honestly don’t think that I’ll ever find myself to be in a place where I feel so NOT UNDERSTOOD…

What a liberating feeling: the language didn’t get the better of me. China had opened up its doors and suddenly I was seeing everything so fresh and new. Xing Cheng is a small tourist resort only an hour from Jinzhou… The city itself would, to most, seem to be pretty similar to Jinzhou, but to me it felt so different. Man, I suddenly loved China so much and everything that had become normal in Jinzhou, seemed so surreal, inspiring and cool in Xing Cheng. The donkeys, the carts, the stalls, the colours, the characters, the Asian feel… I was so inspired and it got my travel juices as well as my writing juices flowing! Yes… life was amazing…

I hung out at the beachside all day… writing, walking, looking, taking pictures, reading and having a ball, all by myself! I didn’t feel saddened that it was suddenly time to make my way back to the bus, the train and ultimately to Jinzhou, because I knew I could come back! I knew what it was I needed in this current situation, so as to always be on top of the game! There were no more barriers. And from now on I can explore every weekend if I want! All I have to do is accept some help from those who know this country and I don’t have to feel like a failure for doing so. I can’t wait for my next day trip, to whatever place it may be… all I hope is that it will again be by the sea!!!! Yay… I was totally refuelled by the end of the day… so to round it off and bring all that energy into my current contacts, I went to the club with the guys from work and had the best night ever…without getting ‘high’ on alcohol, but instead just being ‘high’ on life and becoming temporarily the ruler of the dance floor!

A moment reflecting: Coffee-stopping

Listen to what happened on my weekend (Monday)… I set out walking the streets of Jinzhou, in search of something after waking-up and feeling I could just sit down and start the next book. I already had an idea as to what it would be about… So I figured, why wouldn’t I be able to go to a coffee shop, set-up my ‘office’ (not staying at home was for the reason that I felt a flow of people around me would give me good buzz of excitement) and just start from something fresh and new… So… sitting in coffeeshop number 1… Humm… nothing was happening… I was just journaling… So, I figured, it was the wrong setting. So I moved to the food court on the otherside of town… I sat, I waited… nope… there wasn’t even any journaling… I didn’t even switch-on my laptop! I wasn’t even holding a pen! What happened then? I got frustrated of course! I couldn’t understand why I wasn’t able to simply write this book… By this stage I was too much inside my own head… So I forced myself to end the ‘coffee stopping’ and I started to make my way home…before going to just one more coffee shop; it was only number 3… I sat and didn’t even give a thought to what I should be writing about. At that point I figured I’d already gone too far and it only led me to feel clogged and stuck. I was forcing something into being that obviously wasn’t ready to come to life just yet.

All this coffee-stopping, was such an interesting thing to do (and not because of the coffees…I wasn’t actually drinking cappuccinos or lattes but tea and milky drinks instead  … caffeine and I don’t work well together!). That evening I felt like such a loser: if I claim to be a writer then why can’t I just sit and start another book? I couldn’t figure it out… I felt like it had been weeks since I’d finished my first book and I was lagging behind. But then, I realized: it had actually only been 3 full days since I’d been running around the office shouting full of joy that I’d finished my first book… since that morning, I’d been teaching and lesson planning for 3 solid days (up until Sunday evening and had worked a 20 hour weekend and I actually expected to be able to wake-up after such days and instantly start the next book… Man oh man… I had to remind myself I’m only human…

So… what’s happened since then? I’ve accepted that right now, I’m in the middle of 2 books. I’m finding a home for book 1 (as I’m contacting agencies again and only got word back from the one Dublin…he’s reviewing the book and will reply in August... so that’s good news!) and book 2 is brewing away inside. I’ve a few ideas floating around but nothing enough yet for the writing to actually start.

Writing one book doesn’t automatically mean that writing another will take the same amount of time… it won’t come about in the same manner either… Because, back then I was in Ireland and now I’m in China. Back then I wasn’t working and now I’m teaching. Back then the writing was allowed to take over my life. But now… that can’t be the way… because I’ve a life alongside the writing, and it takes up more of my time and focus. So, it will be different this time round. But one fact of the matter remains the same: before a book can actually be written and take on a life of its’ own… the idea needs to grow bigger and bigger until I can do nothing else, other than sit down and actually put it into words… hummm…

A moment reflecting

The process of writing a book. Well… what can I say? At this stage I can safely say… that it’s something I’ve done before… and am willing to do again. So much so… But it takes some reflecting on how the first book came to be a book, before I can actually accept that the second book can’t simply be created over night…

It’s almost a year ago since I left India and headed to Rome before slowly but reluctantly making my way to Ireland, where I actually only wanted to stay for a few weeks. However, things planned out differently… I left India with this URGENCY almost to write my first book about anorexia. I had to do it… I didn’t know where it would happen or how… I didn’t know the process that was involved and so it was hard to determine how long it would take. I knew I wanted to write but didn’t want it to interfere with my travels.

Anyhow… to keep this ‘short’… I set out in search for a place to write and in August I landed myself in Ireland thinking I could write the book within a month. I wanted to be on the road by… well… asap! But it didn’t plan out like that at all. I actually see now that, from the middle of August up until the middle of October, I spent diving into that part of me again and reliving my first blog (nfightinga.blogspot.com). As well I had to get into the proper flow of continuous writing… as everyday I would sit and journal about absolutely everything and anything. It wasn’t until the middle of October came and I’d found a place to write, I’d found the words I wanted to write and the flow was almost unstoppable. For 2 solid months I sat at the desk in my little brothers Seans room, every morning from 08.30am till around 3pm… tapping on the keyboard. And the story unfolded.

By Christmas my book was complete. I then had 2 months of contacting agencies… I let the actual story sit for a while… and distanced myself but still put out the word in Ireland (and often further afield) as much as possible, that this book was in search of a home. I wanted to establish myself as being ‘some sort of a writer’ before leaving to travel again. And 2 months later (February), I set off… to China… Again, 2 months I let the book sit tight. I needed to feel settled in my flying excitement as this part of the world was bringing up many different sides of me. Without having grounded myself, I couldn’t even consider going into that part of my past once again, even though I knew that it needed my attention. By the end of April… it happened… by finding this apartment, a new environment was created so the editing could begin… and 2 months later, after reliving my past all over again, in between staying focused on the job here at hand, I did it… The book is now complete…

So… that just about sums up HOW a book can be written… even BEFORE the publishing starts… Why am I going over this process? Because, to see so clearly how the story FIRST needs to grow in it’s concept and how I need to feel I’m totally in the RIGHT PLACE for the actual words to be fit for a book, gives me acceptance of the fact that, in my current situation, it’s impossible for me to wake-up from one day to the next and say I ACTUALLY WILL START WRITING ANOTHER BOOK TODAY!