Sovereign Nations

I love my birthday - it’s myyyyyy day. James and I agree that birthdays are the most important holidays. We went and bought me some books, then went to a fancy bakery that does the kinds of cakes I think of as BD cakes and got slices of Black Forest, and this evening we’ll be going to a fancy hotel buffet for dinner. It’s better than you’re imagining, being a buffet and all. Indian food lends itself very well to being kept warm in that buffet kind of way…I just hope they have that Malabar Fish…Mmmmmmm!

On this, my thirty-third birthday, I’m also celebrating the successful completion of the NaNoWriMo Competition. This is my page on their website. Now, the goal is to write 50,000 words in the month of November. That makes it a rather short novel, since the standard novel length is 80-100K, but it is still a shitload of writing to get done in one month. I finished at 76,386 words. Pretty cool, right?

I wrote most days, getting a ton done when I knew what I wanted to say and not much done when I hadn’t figured out what happened next. Duh, right? Well, I hadn’t thought about that part very much before we started. I finished my last go-round on my first manuscript on October 15th and sent it to a small, select group of people who seemed interested in reading it (avoiding any people who responded to the idea with the deer-in-the-headlights look). That gave me about two weeks between finishing that one (for the moment) and beginning the next one. ‘Cause that’s the rules, see. You can’t start before the 1st.

I spent two weeks pulling my vague idea together, doing a bunch of research on the careers of the main characters, some of the points I was thinking about covering, and the backgrounds of the MCs. One large part of the plot line is that the action ties into the process of building an eco-friendly house. So I worked on pulling together all the information I could find on green building and running it by my expert adviser - Harold Rhodes. He’s wonderful - really thoughtful and insightful, and an expert in the wild and woolly world of contractors. He’s also married to my mother, though calling him my step-dad feels kind of weird since he’s younger than my own husband.

If I hadn’t spent those two weeks creating character sketches and backgrounds, researching construction methods and timelines, and writing and rewriting a synopsis, I can’t imagine having been able to write much at all. It’s amazing to me, but it seems that a lot of NaNoWriMo people just sat down and started typing. Wow. I’m not that creative.

My novel’s not quite finished. I’m planning a real full MS, and I think…I think I have about 15,000 more words to write. I should be able to toss that off by Friday. Heh.

Here’s the synopsis of the book’s beginning, though it will probably change in revisions. This takes you a little more than halfway through the book. This version of the synopsis ends when the book starts the downhill, momentum-gathering sleigh ride toward the grand finale.

Root of the Lilikoi Synopsis

by Dena Hankins

Construction project manager Kerala Hilma is new to Hawaii, skeptical of the allure but drawn by the boom in work. She chooses to work for Malama Construction, the mid-sized, family-owned kind of company she likes, and starts work within a week.

Tired of the glass office, CEO and solar power engineer Ravi Dietrich needs some R&R and R&D. A dedicated scientist, he’s wilting in the corporate hothouse and rarely making it to the ocean to soak his saltwater soul. He blends experimentation with time off by planning an off-grid model eco-vacation-house. A killer deal on waterfront land sends him to Hawaii from California to bring the dream to life.

Malama Construction has no history in green building, so the boss gives the Request for Bid to the new girl with her fancy Ivy League education. Though Kerala submits a bid several hundreds of thousands of dollars higher than her competition, Ravi hires Malama as general contractors on the strength of Kerala’s impeccable research and demonstrated commitment to building to his specs.

Kerala hears that the Kama’aina (locals) will try to protect what they believe is the site of an ancient burial ground. Kerala is hardheaded and not in the least superstitious, so she takes the rumors as an indication of possible difficulties with local workers.

Ravi and Kerala strike sparks off one another and enjoy a flirtatious relationship when they’re not arguing details. They observe the boundaries of professionalism through the occasional visits for planning and design meetings. As she and Ravi refine the plans via email and phone conversations, they get to know each other without the pressure of their undeniable attraction, developing a strong mutual respect.

Kerala is beset by permitting problems, bumbling suppliers, and a community of sub-contractors that won’t even bid on the work. She gets the crew working on deconstructing an old hotel for recyclable building materials while she shouts, finesses, and bulls her way through the obstructions.

After a perilous slide down a hillside rigged to collapse, she finds evidence that her problems have been sabotage. She calls on her two best men, Kekipi and Jack, to help her find the wrongdoer. But the men seem to have a secret.

Ravi flies in the next day, ostensibly to help sort materials from the hotel deconstruction. He has come to warn Kerala of a pattern he’s seen in her reports – he wants her to watch out for sabotage! Kerala is impressed by his analysis, but not by his insistence that she let him move in to protect her. The desk jockey protecting the construction worker? Preposterous. Their fight escalates beyond polite words, and the heat is intensified by their smoldering physical awareness. They achieve a fragile détente, but settle nothing.

Days later, Kerala is run off the road while walking her dog. She gathers Kekipi, Jack, and Ravi at her house, bringing them up to date and asking a distraught Ravi to stay with her after all. Kerala challenges Kekipi with his suspicious behavior and he explains that he was involved with a Hawaiian separatist group when he was younger. The work disruption follows the pattern of his old community, but he promises that they aren’t behind the physical violence to her personally and explains, worried, that the separatists he questioned are also worried about the rogue.

After Jack and Kekipi leave, Kerala indulges herself by throwing down a sensual gauntlet that Ravi knows she can’t back up, bruised and tired as she is. As she expects, Ravi declines to take advantage of her upset state of mind and sleeps on her Laz-e-Boy recliner. Ravi gets his revenge by planning a long, slow, painful mutual seduction.

Ravi suggests that Kerala quit, which would remove the barriers to their relationship while also ensuring her safety. She is outraged at the idea of slinking away from a project in which she’d invested so much energy. She is determined to get the upper hand and insists that they work together. Ravi, frustrated once again, moves forward with his plans to bring them to a peak of need and finding the breaking point. Finally, their sexual pressure explodes in furious lovemaking.

The situation explodes when they dig up a lilikoi tree for replanting and find a body in the ground nearby. The Hawaiian Island Burial Council and the state Historical Preservation officer arrive quickly, but so do the police. When the body is analyzed, far from being one of ancients, this body is only a decade old. The story comes to light that a previous owner tried to build on the same land but disappeared, and his estate discontinued the development.

Sure enough, Kerala’s crew has improperly exhumed the previous owner, who doesn’t seem to have died of natural causes. Now there’s a murder to match her accidents and the string of sabotage. The only good thing about this find is that Ravi can’t point the protective finger at Kerala any longer. He seems to be in danger as well.

I don’t know, but I had a ball yesterday.

James and I rode out to this big empty square. I remembered it being very quiet there one Sunday when we were looking for a beach, so it seemed like a good place to try my hand at riding the motorcycle myself.

James has been driving everywhere we go. He has a ton of experience riding motorcycles and he picked up the rhythm of Indian traffic very quickly. Since he doesn’t have to think about operating the motorcycle, he was able to focus on getting used to the much more dangerous part.

Me, I rode a 50cc motorcycle when I was around 10 years old. I remember enjoying it to a certain extent, but I was already too big for it and preferred the go-cart, the tractor, or - if Dad felt like giving me a lesson - the truck. I remembered the feeling of letting off the clutch and twisting the throttle. I remembered how the motorcycle seemed to want to jump out from under me. That was one of the things I had learned on the little bike - how to really sit on it and ride with it.

When I first tried riding the Bullet we have now, I felt the same thing. I was standing so firmly on the ground that I almost didn’t move when the bike started rolling. It came back to me suddenly, in that moment, how it felt to ride a motorcycle. Way fun!

But I didn’t really get any practice. I just got going, tried out the gears, and turned around in circles. This was in an empty festival yard - a big open area with some pitted spots, some gravel, and some grass. My newly-healed ankle whined at me with even that little bit of starting the bike and shifting, so I didn’t last long. All I really achieved was the feeling that, in an emergency, I could get James and myself to a hospital or hotel or something.

Yesterday, I more or less ran drills while James sat, bored but alert in case I ran into trouble. One side of the square has six little sleeping policemen, so I practiced remembering to clutch when I slowed way down for them. That side was lined with houses. One side was clear and wide without much traffic, so I could get up a little speed and practice running up and down through the gears. One side was pitted and I practiced weaving around the potholes. And the last side was in real traffic, so I practiced looking for an opening and getting out into the flow.

So there I was going around and around. On the first circle, the guys hanging out stared at me. On the second circle, I killed the engine and had a little trouble starting it. Those guys were all over me, advising me on how to make it start. I knew what they were trying to tell me - use the compression release and give it a little throttle - but just nodded and smiled while I got it going. They all cheered and waved me off.

On the third circle, they looked confused. A small gaggle of women had appeared in the walled enclosure fronting their house and they smiled at me with enormous eyes. Then a group of children gathered and sat as though I was better than TV.

Around I went, and each time I passed these people, they looked both confused and delighted. I had slowed way down for a kid - you know, a baby goat - and the guys yelled, where are you going?

Now I thought that was a pretty funny question. Here I was, going in circles, and they thought I was lost? I just laughed and kept moving. The next time around, the kids asked me and I answered without stopping, around in circles. I laughed again, but this time with a slight incredulity that added a sharp edge to the sound.

The ladies asked last. This time I stopped. I put the bike in neutral and leaned forward on the handlebars. “Practicing,” I said, and they looked confused. “Learning to ride the bike,” I said and made a circle with my finger. One lady said, “Ah!” and chattered at the others. Soon, they were all smiling and nodding. As I waved and started off again, one lady leaned over the wall and passed the word to the next-door neighbors.

I rode off, knowing that the word would spread. Maybe they’d stop staring! No such luck. A woman riding a bullet is a rather exciting sight. A white woman in a churidar riding a bullet in circles is just plain comedy. Or so it seemed to me. The whole neighborhood ended up coming out to see. I felt like I should be doing tricks - standing on my head on the seat, popping wheelies and jumping the rock piles.

Finally, I got tired of the circles and the staring. James still wasn’t enthusiastic about the idea of riding bitch, and I wasn’t enthusiastic about being responsible for his safety as well as my own and that of the others on the road. Too much to worry about.

I crossed the road with the major traffic and took off down a quiet stretch, straight and with few side roads. It was a perfect place to get up some speed and feel like I was really riding. There were sleeping policemen periodically along the road and I had to slow quickly once I saw them. I felt that was good practice as well, except when I didn’t see one coming and put the bike into a slight slide hitting the back break too hard. Okay, now I know how hard too hard is. I swung in a wide circle around a flag pole right next to the All-India Radio tower and zoomed on back down the road. This time, I was prepared for each bump, and I had a grand time.

When I got back to the major road, there was a snarl in process. A bus was at the stop, a car had tried to turn behind it, the rickshaw blocking the car’s way was in the right, but trying to back away sideways to let the car through. A river of pedestrians was taking the opportunity to cross the road, the bright blues, reds, whites flowing around the red bus and mostly black and white cars, motorcycles, and rickshaws.

Well, it seems as though I was the last straw. When I pulled up, the bus pulled out. That should have cleared the way, but instead, the rickshaw drivers were staring at me, the car’s driver was grinning, the pedestrians were pausing to look, and a woman in the back of a rickshaw almost fell out trying to see me better. The rickshaw was making a right turn off the main road, so they were stuck at an angle just in front of me. She was one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen, and she was smiling at me as though I was the best thing in her life.

I think I’ve inadvertently been in the closet on this blog. I like women. I like them in, you know, that way. Though I put away the idea of flirting when we came to India (just what I need, another set of miscues to confuse me!), I’ve been getting these smiles. The smiles I get from the women here in India say to me “I am interested in you,” “I would like to know more about you,” and “how fascinating!” These are looks and smiles I’m used to interpreting as flirtatious. So, as a person who likes to flirt with other women, who is open to the idea of taking things beyond flirting…it’s quite the tease.

So yeah, there I was, the most beautiful woman in the world smiling at me as though she’d like to take me home and figure me out, as though she admired me and wanted to get to know me better. It knocked my socks off, and it took a couple of horns honking as the traffic mess sorted itself out before I remembered that she was probably not flirting. Sigh. Oh well.

They drove off, heading past me, and I nodded to her wave. When I turned my head back, there was a group of about ten women all staring at me in the same way! Three or four generations of women, all lovely in some way. I felt special, dangerous, and influential, just sitting on a motorcycle at that intersection. The men were amazed but the women - right at that moment, they all loved me.

I bounce back and forth like that whenever James and I wander out of our writing room. Sometimes, I feel like the funniest thing ever. When I’m trying to eat and I suspect I’m not doing it right. When my opinion of the hacking in the butcher shop shows in my face. When my dupatta won’t stay put no matter how firmly I hold it. And sometimes I feel like a rock star. Children point and laugh, they run to us to ask us how we’re doing. They smile with their whole bodies. Did I do that? Did I inspire that happiness and excitement? Women look at me as though my happiness is a compliment to them. Whew.

What will it feel like to go to another place, to go back to the US or to a place where I can pass as a local? Will I feel invisible? Will I be saddened and will my happiness fade? I am generally a happy person, but I never - never - walk down the street here for long with a frown on my face.