A hobby for a hobby - by Harini Nagendra

This week's question is about Hobbies.

Hobbies - some people garden, others work on jigsaw puzzles, cartoon, or play music. What's your creative outlet when you're not writing? 

Writing is my hobby, and my creative outlet - so this is a bit of a meta-question. I've always written - or almost always, I think I started writing tiny stories when I was about six. Writing - essays, 'made-up' stories, limericks and the like - has been my go-to creative outlet from the start. I like to say that my fiction series, The Bangalore Detectives Club, is my life crisis - but in reality it's been my mid-life second birth, an alternate career that brings my life so much joy, and is a real de-stresser. When work life and home life goes crazy around me, I dive straight into 1920s Bangalore, a kindler, gentler time with clean air, good food, wide roads with no traffic, tree shade, bird song and the sparkle of sunlight reflecting off the blue waters of a lake - and I can feel the stress melt away.

So - what's my hobby when I'm not indulging my main hobby? The side-side-hobby?

When I thought about it, I realized just how neglectful I have been of all my other creative pursuits over the past few years - since writing has taken over nearly all of my spare time.

I grew up in a house of music. My mother, who is now 87, started learning Karnatic classical music when she was 5 - and she taught me how to play the veena, a stringed instrument that is a cousin of the harp, when I was about the same age. The veena looks a bit like the sitar, except you sit down cross legged, and place one end of the veena on your lap when you play. I was very attached to my mother when I was young, and as she tells it, fiercely jealous of this veena which was on her lap - I used to wriggle into her lap and push the instrument away. In sheer self defense she gave me her second veena and taught me how to play :-)

This is my mother's veena - and if you're curious about what's in front, this is the bombe kolu, traditional display of dolls at the time of the Dussehra festival, which lasts for ten days. On one of the last days, the veena is worshipped as an embodiment of Saraswati, Goddess of Music and Knowledge 

I have long ignored my veena, though - I rarely play these days, though I did promise my teacher that I would resume classes with her this month. (And now that I've sent off book 4 in The Bangalore Detectives Club series, Into the Leopard's Den, to my publisher, I really should make good on that promise).

I used to cook, and loved making traditional Indian food - and baking - but these days I do little of both. My husband has taken over much of the cooking, and my daughter does the baking, and they far surpass my skills! So I eat - and try and walk off some off the food, though it's always a temptation to eat more than I walk.

I do still retain sole proprietorship over some family recipes though - traditional sweets like Mysore Pak, a fudge-like barfi made with wheat, sugar and ghee, lots of ghee - and, since my mother can no longer make pickle, I am also the house's undisputed pickle maker.

Here's the raw material for avakkai - my mother-in-law's recipe for mango pickle - chilli powder, mustard powder, salt, sesame oil and mangoes

and the final product - many large bottles of avakkai, thokku, and other kinds of mango pickle, a year's supply for us, with extra for friends and family

Crochet is incredibly relaxing, better than meditation. I used to crochet, and I have a story about the skirt that my daughter and I call the "lock-down skirt" - but I'll save that for another day.

But what's replaced the time I used to spend on my hobbies - playing the veena, cooking, baking, crochet - has been taken over by writing. Do I miss my old hobbies? Of course. But time is finite. And I love my writing - so overall, no regrets - only gratitude for my mid-life foray into this wonderful side-career.

 

  

LOTS of Photos from James W. Ziskin

Hobbies - some people garden, others work on jigsaw puzzles, cartoon, or play music. What's your creative outlet when you're not writing? 

At first glance, this week’s topic seems light and easy. And yet…

It’s made me realize how boring I am. But rather than hobbies, let’s call them “outside interests.” That sounds more substantial.

I used to have more outside interests. In my twenties, I loved cinema, especially foreign and art films. Not anymore. I haven’t seen a new movie in a long time. Like my dad who, before he passed away two years ago, would brag/joke that the last film he’d seen in a movie theater was M*A*S*H in 1970. More than fifty years ago. Not sure why he gave up on movies, but I avoid them today because I don’t like sitting in seats sat in by other sitters. Even before the pandemic, I used to sanitize my airplane seats. Especially the armrests. The grime that comes off is…gross.

So I don’t go to the movies anymore. I also have more or less given up golf. I used to love getting out on the links for “a good walk spoiled.” But in recent years, I’ve managed to throw out my back right at the start of each summer, and that’s put a crimp in my plans. And my back. In fact, I did it again six weeks ago, and I’m just now able to lift myself out of bed without provoking a tectonic shift and howling pain in the lumbar regions of my spine. Maybe I’ll play later this summer.

Little Giants football c. 1971

What about other sports? In my youth, I played baseball, basketball, and football. The budding star in the red circle above is me. Two of my brothers are in the photo as well. Can you spot them? Post your guesses in the comments below.

I ran track and field in high school. I did the long jump and triple jump. Can’t do those things anymore, although I have become “jump”-y in my dotage and I “trip” over things all the time.

Triple jump 1978

I don’t play tennis. Come on. What’s the point? And I can’t get past the name “pickleball” to give that a try. Plus it’s just tennis only slower and louder, isn’t it?

I love to ski, but haven’t done much of it recently. Now I enjoy après-ski.

                                                Whistler Mountain BC 2017

Let’s see. What other outside interests don’t I have? 

Cooking? Il faut manger, of course, but it’s not a passion for me. I’m not a foodie.

Oh, shit

Music? I love classical music. 

Marilyn Monroe and Tom Ewell

Marilyn Monroe in The Seven-Year Itch: “This is what they call classical music, isn’t it? I can tell because there’s no vocal.” 

Yes, I love to listen to music, but I gave up playing the piano and the guitar many, many years ago. Still, I fantasize that I might pick up the piano again someday.

Charlie Chaplin

I don’t garden, knit, collect stamps, coins, or animation cels. (Dust, yes.) I don’t watch birds, don’t play cards, gamble, or swap meets. I’m dull.

So, no, I don’t have many outside interests. Between my writing and my teaching job, I lack the energy and the inclination to do much of anything extra. 

Except maybe drawing. I love to draw. I use it in my work as a French teacher and in my life. It’s an enjoyable pastime. A wonderful outside interest. And just so you won’t think I’m a total dud, here’s a modest gallery of some of my drawings (in no particular order), from maps to computer drawings to pencil to erasable markers on a white board. Some of these are unfinished and others I’ve posted here before, so please indulge me.

A map from BOMBAY MONSOON

   

Tintin whiteboard in my French class

Georges Brassens

Ray Milland

The reluctant footballer

Eugenio Montale

American Cow c. 1998

G. H. W. Bush

Giacomo Puccini

Carole Lombard

William Powell

Cocktails? 1997

French class whiteboard

Nat King Cole

La météo whiteboard French class

Mansard roof

TURN TO STONE map of Florence

Waiter about to be fired c. 2010

Show Cats 1967

Pier Paolo Pasolini

All-prison first team baller

Henry Fonda

Character sketch c. 2002

Pheasant c. 1992

Cary Grant

S

Kicking Back

Hobbies - some people garden, others work on jigsaw puzzles, cartoon, or play music. What's your creative outlet when you're not writing? 

by Dietrich

My pastimes lean to the creative, and I think of them as passions, while hobbies are more relaxed than intense, like gardening, cooking and going for long walks. I like to pick up my guitar and tend to play songs with roots in the blues. There have been several guitars since I was in my early teens, but I never had what it took to really make anything of it. But I still like to kick back, and I enjoy learning new licks, purely for my own personal enjoyment. No aspirations of being the next Tommy Emmanuel or Jorma Kaukonen.

I’ve always had a broad appreciation for music, and I enjoy listening to everything from Bill Evans to Hound Dog Taylor, Beethoven to Alice Cooper. And while I still listen to a lot of what lit me up when I was younger, I delight in finding performers and bands that I’ve never heard before. And it’s always great when some legacy rocker comes out with something that’s (almost) as good as what they did back in the day. And there have been some good ones recently by Dylan, Iggy, and the Stones. And Willie Nelson just turned 91 on the heels of his latest album release. Yup, he’s still living the high life, and I understand he’s going on tour too.

I’m rolling some of that “pastime” into a story that’s still at the early stages of the first draft. What I’ve got so far is a guitar player who’s out to find his big break as he gets involved with a shady record producer with ties to organized crime. And I’ve tossed in a political-anarchist girlfriend for good measure, and we’ll see how it goes.

There’ve been other passions over the years, some I would like to get back into sometime. I dabbled in art since I was a kid, and I was into oil painting for several years, followed by a stretch when photography became a creative expression. Much of which came in handy and served me well in a career as a commercial artist.

And reading has always been a pastime that I find both relaxing and inspiring. I’ve always got a book on the go, and usually there are several more waiting to be read. As with music, I love finding an author who’s new to me, as well as rereading some old favorites now and then. Some new ones I’m looking forward to: Nobody Walks by Mick Herron, a standalone, not part of the Slough House series; Horror Movie by Paul Tremblay; Clete and Harbor Lights, both by James Lee Burke, and the new one by Emily Schultz, Sleeping with Friends. 

Crooked: coming September 24th from ECW Press.

Spare Time?

 

Terry here, and this week we are talking about our hobbies – no, not the “hobby” of writing novels, but creative outlets other than writing. 

Some people garden, others work on jigsaw puzzles, cartoon, or play music. I do most of those things, except cartooning. Wouldn't even know where to begin. I also don't actually do "gardening," because I don’t have a garden. But I attempt to green my environment with lots of potted plants, which take their own bit of care. 

 I used to sing, and belonging to at least one chorus for years. I would also sing and play the guitar. I never felt the need to perform, but just enjoyed the singing. In recent years that has fallen away. Oddly, I don’t listen to music as much as I used to, either. I think it’s because I find air pods irritating and I don’t want to broadcast my music throughout the house, so it doesn’t get played at all. I’m thinking it’s time to revise that. 

 I do the daily New York Times crossword every day. And I like to do jigsaw puzzles. I even bought myself a fancy jigsaw puzzle board that has slide-out drawers for sorting colors. During Covid, I actually did a 3,000-piece puzzle that was given to me by Camille Minichino who said she and her husband just couldn’t tackle it. Except for the 15 pieces that my dogs chewed up when they fell on the floor, I finished the whole thing. 

 Then there’s reading. I guess you could call it a hobby, but it feels more like a lifeline. I read a lot of mysteries, but also read other types of books as well—mostly fiction, but some non-fiction. I read classics, mainstream, sci-fi, you name it. 

 But my best creative outlet is cooking. After a day of writing, even if I’m tired, cooking relaxes me. I love to cook, and there is hardly a night when my husband doesn’t remark that whatever we are having is superior to anything we could get in a restaurant. Which is an exaggeration, but I do enjoy cooking.

I like to try new recipes and revise old ones. I can enjoy making a simple meal as much as an elaborate one, because I know that the nuances of taste can be teased out with only the smallest bit of the right herbs. 

 But I also enjoy coming across a challenging recipe and taking the time to make it. I have a recipe for a 9-layer cake with different flavors of crisp meringue and layers of different flavors of custard. It takes a lot of time, but the end result is magnificent. I served it at a dinner party and one of the guests asked for the recipe. I told her I’d be glad to pass it along but that I knew she wouldn’t make it. She insisted that she loved to cook and that of course she would make it. Two days later she called me and said she had just read the recipe. Then she said, “Are you crazy? Who would make this?” The funny thing is that once you got the rhythm of it, it was fairly easy to do.

 Because I love to cook, I enjoy going to the farmer’s market, and sometimes I overbuy because the sight of all those beautiful vegetables sparks such creative ideas. The colors of purple eggplants, red or gold tomatoes, green or yellow zucchinis, snowy white fennel bulbs is irresistible. The scent of basil and cilantro. The exotic look of the variety of mushrooms. Freshly-made pasta. I rarely have a time when I don’t feel like cooking. 

And my last “hobby” is exercise. Again, it feels more like a lifeline than a hobby. I bike (okay trike), hike, and do on-line exercise classes 2-3 times a week. Believe it or not, I look forward to all of it. 

 I look forward to reading what my fellow “Minds” do as hobbies.

Creative Outlets

Hobbies - some people garden, others work on jigsaw puzzles, cartoon, or play music. What's your creative outlet when you're not writing?   

Brenda starting off the week.

My hobbies depend on the season.

In the late spring and summer, I spend a lot of time in my garden. Buying, planting, watering, weeding, dividing, putting to bed .... there's always something to be done. Then it's time to sit with a book and a cup of coffee or glass of wine and enjoy the hummingbird in the honeysuckle and the bees in the Russian sage. I also like biking or walking around my neighbourhood looking at gardens.

In the fall and winter, I turn my creativity to curling -- no, not my hair -- but the sport on ice with rocks. You might not think a game is creative, but I assure you that coming up with the strategy and figuring out how to throw the stone can take a great deal of imagination. My husband and my daughters curl too - my daughters competitively, and we spent a lot of our winters following them to bonspiels and competitions from the time they were seven and eight. My oldest daughter Lisa's career took us to the Olympics in South Korea. She went a second time to the Olympics in China during the pandemic when spectators and family were not allowed, so we watched on television. In any case, curling has occupied a lot of my time as a parent, spectator and participant.

Cooking has also been a creative outlet, one that I enjoy ... sometimes. As those in the family tasked with coming up with meals every night know, cooking can also be a drudge. Still, it's fun to try a new recipe and satisfying when it turns out. At the moment, my herb garden is overflowing, so I'm incorporating these into my meal creations as often as I can.

Writing and the business of writing take up much of my time. I also usually have a book or two on the go that I'm reading for pleasure, another time-swallower. When adding in family and friend time, exercise, looking after a house, shopping and all the day-to-day tasks, I'd say my life is busy enough! Boredom is a word I seldom use :-)

Website: www.brendachapman.ca

Facebook, Instagram & Threads: BrendaChapmanAuthor

Twitter (X): brendaAchapman

How My Crazy Brain and a Terrier Dictate my Workflow, by Josh Stallings

Q: A writer's job involves a lot of sitting - scribbling in a notepad, or hunched over in a chair, typing. Do you have a daily exercise routine? What advice would you offer to other writers, to keep themselves fit and healthy over the longer term?

A Case Study.

2:41 AM PST. My brain alerts my central nervous system, "WAKE UP. I have pages for the new novel. I need the fingers to type them. WAKE UP. I have the essay for Criminal Minds. It starts with “CASE STUDY” and a screen grab of the time.” 

Drifting between a dream and this demand I glance at my wrist. My trusty Tudor Ranger tells me it’s too damn early o’clock for any demands. I try to negotiate. “Hey brain, sweetie, twenty more minutes of sleep and I’ll jump to.” 

“No. Now.”

“Right, how about I get up and make some…” I feel myself slipping into a dream about making coffee so I can write. I feel myself measuring the water. I can smell the grounds as I spoon them into the filter.

“Wake the fuck up you lazy bastard.”

“Hey brain, ease up.”

“NO. Get the fuck up and start typing. I work over-time thinking about stories and essays. Coming up with fixes for chapter twenty-seven — she holds the veil up against her face so Harry can see who she was, lowering it exposes tattooed tribal lines of the warrior she is. She is the widow. She is the warrior. MY only request is that you act on these ideas with some immediacy.” 

Fair-play brain. I roll out of bed trying not to wake Erika or the dogs. Buster isn’t fooled, he follows me into my office. 

2:49 AM PST. I’m up and typing. No coffee, my own fault; I wasted coffee making time arguing with myself, Topo-Chico will have to do until I get enough of this essay written that it won’t crumble if I look away for a few minutes. Ideas are like dreams, real concrete worlds that start turning to mist the moment I wake. For them to survive…

3:35 AM PST. …fairy chimes ring out of my phone, ripping me out of my writing. It’s a family member worrying about Huston power outages. I’m not physically in Huston, or I wasn’t until I checked the text. Who is texting this early? Don’t they know I’m working? Yes it is three hours later on the East Coast, but still. Calming down I breathe. My own damn fault again. I forgot to set my computer to “do not disturb.” I work on a Mac linked to my iPad and iPhone. With one setting I can tell all my devices to “Leave me alone, I’m working.” 

If I don’t respect my writing time, how can I expect my brain to keep churning out ideas and coming up with solutions to my first draft messes?

3:48 AM PST. An hour wasted. 504 words written. 507 if you count these. 513… 

3:51 AM PST.  I hide Word Count. Computers have all these amazing tools, choosing when to use which ones can be tricky. Knowing my current word count tends to lead me into a state of I-need-more-words-to-prove-I-had-a-productive-day. 

Less is always more unless more is needed. My life is full of dichotomies. The only way to gain power over my life is to admit I am powerless over my life. This is as true about my alcoholism as it is about my writing career. 

By accepting I have no control over any outcomes I see what I do have control over, these words I’m typing, this moment. Right here, right now, that I can control. I can control setting the do not disturb switch. I cannot and should not control who sends a family group chat out. I have neither the nuclear launch code nor the formula to cure disease. I’m just not that important. Anyone trying to reach me can wait until the sun has risen and I’ve had some coffee.

PROJECTED AGENDA: Future gazing from 4:00 AM.

6:00 AM ish - I will take the dogs on a pee/poop walk around our property. Give them a chance to investigate the smells left by the wild things of the night. If we’re lucky our neighbor dogs will be up and they can have a quick sniff and chat through the fence. This walk takes between ten and fifteen minutes depending on the length and speed of investigation.

7:00 AM - Feed dogs. Make coffee. My breakfast of oatmeal or smoothie. Chat with Erika and Jared. Maybe do some writing after that. We shall see.

8:00 AM ish - take the dogs to County Park or Nature Center for a long walk. This schedule varies based on weather, summer heat gets us out earlier, winter’s lack of light pushes walks until 10 AM. If we’re walking our friend’s dog Daisy, we go as late as 11:00 AM. The key is to get thirty to forty-five minutes of physical and mental exercise. Buster being a terrier needs this or he becomes an asshole. I need it because as a human if I live entirely in my head I become an asshole.

Today is a writing day so after the tromp in the forest I will write. 

12:00 PM ish - lunch. Usually with Jared and Erika. Food and a show of some kind. Lately Jared and I have been watching Snowpiercer, a dystopian TV series based on a French graphic novel and a Korean film. It is different enough from my creative worlds that it can feed me without taking over what I’m working on.

After this depending on my output so far and the demands of life, I will either go back to typing or get to outside chores, chopping wood and carrying water literally. 

3:30 PM ish - Walk dogs in the neighborhood, visit with their and our friends. These walks are anywhere from twenty to forty-five minutes, depending on how many plants need sniffing, and how many conversations we have.

Afternoon is for finishing the hanging threads of my chores or writing or watching a film.

7:00 PM - dinner for humans and dogs.

8:30 PM ish - a quick last walk with the dogs. Family hang time and bed.

Wake up tomorrow and if I’m lucky enough to have my brain still talking to me I do it all over again.

BACK TO REAL TIME

4:46 AM PST - wrapping this up before emailing it to Erika for her first pass edit.

I come from a long line of farmers and peasant folk who aspire to be artists and intellectuals. My body is built for labor while my brain is built to muse and mumble. When I forget to honor both sides of my DNA I wobble wildly out of balance. That doesn’t mean exact equal amounts of physical and mental tasks every day. Creative work like outdoor chores have seasons. Early in the writing process I need a lot of staring into space think time. Chopping and stacking logs give me something to do while I think. Deep into a project my brain becomes a taskmaster, I honor this by spending less time outside and typing more. 

Owning dogs makes sure I never completely disappear into my office. Those big eyes and a hereditary willingness to turn boredom into acts of destruction are great motivators.

4:47 AM PST - Heading back to bed. Catch an hour of sleep before reading this over to see how crazy I am.

9:30 AM PST - Words fixed as best as my dyslexic self can. Emailed to Erika. She’ll let me know if I’ve strayed completely off the page. She hasn’t said so yet. I’m beginning to think she likes me a wee bit crazy. And so do I. It’s important to have an editor who likes the same things about your work as you do.

Hoping a grand and productive day to you all.

****

What I’m Reading now:

All the Colors of the Dark by Chris Whitaker. 

Finished it, and it only got more astute, ingenious, insightful, and crazy good. One of the most brilliant books I’ve read since We Begin at the End.

The Mars Room: A Novel by Rachel Kushner

I fell in love with her The Flame Throwers. This is very different but equally wonderful.

I’m listening to The Singer’s Gun by Emily St. John Mandel.

 ****

Todays word count for those counting is, drum roll… 1,439 so far.