Saturday, December 1: NaNoWriMo (Nat’s Novel Writing Month)

So I’m kicking off the last month of the year with my first novel attempt. Last month was official National Novel Writing Month (visit the official website at www.nanowrimo.org), but relocation issues prevented me from jumping on that bandwagon, so I’m launching Nat’s Novel Writing Month instead (and look at that, it’s still, huzzah, conveniently abbreviated to NaNoWriMo). The goal: 50 000 words in 31 days. I’ve got characters, I’ve got setting. A plot is bound to happen, right? If not, well, plot shmot. I mean really, look at Tom Robbins. Everyone loves his books, but can you remember what any of them were actually about?

I’ve told my colleagues at the dive centre of my plan, but it hasn’t generated any of the well-wishing slaps on the back or even raised eyebrows you’d expect when someone announces their first expedition up the literary world’s Everest. It hasn’t really generated any sort of response at all. In fact, people usually go right as if I hadn’t said anything at all. It’s kind of spooky. It makes me want to punch them in the shoulder and shout at them. “Hey, dammit! Did you hear me? I said I was going to write a book! Write, I said. Cause maybe, you know, maybe you thought I said read. But I’m going to write. A novel. I’m going to be a Novelist. Did you catch that?

Maybe they’re ignoring me cause they already know, even after having known me less than a month, that this is just another project I’ll start and never finish. Which, if it’s true, is really depressing that people can figure that out about me so quickly. But my biggest fear about this whole hare-brained scheme truly is the follow-through. Anyone can start a novel. But after the first week, when the exposition and character development have been fleshed-out but my characters still haven’t found anything more interesting than hanging out in coffee shops and bars to fill their non-working hours, will I have the wherewithal to keep writing every day? Will I be able to resist the sweet temptation of creativity naps, or even the slightly less tempting but equally effective procrastination measures of dishwashing, closet organizing, blogging, and let’s not even talk about the distractions waiting outside my four walls…. Will I be able to cast off a lifetime’s worth of procrastination and force myself to sit in front of my computer for the time it takes to hack out a first draft of a novel in 1600-word increments every day for an entire month?

No. Let’s face it, without someone locking me in a room for two hours a night with nothing but a hot drink and my computer, it just ain’t gonna happen. So here’s my plan: There are three guys living in the flat downstairs. Two of them are big drinkers. Their combined bar bill at the hotel probably exceeds my monthly salary. Even with a good-paying job, I’m way too cheap to willingly cover that sort of indiscretionary spending. On a diving instructor salary, it would be a fiscal disaster. Which is exactly why tomorrow I’m going to make the boys downstairs an offer they can’t refuse: if I fail to produce a complete story arc in 50 000 words or more by midnight on December 31, December’s bar tab is on me. Gulp.

November 30, 2007: Agaza (holiday)

I’m out of the water again with another ear infection — the other ear this time. The doctor I saw says he sees more ear infections here in the El Quseir and Marsa Alam area than further north in Hurghada or Sharm El Sheikh. He figures there’s a particular type of plankton that grows in the water here that doesn’t occur further north, and that’s what causes the infections. Makes sense — I had no problems the year I dived nearly every day around Hurghada, and here in less than a month I get infections in both ears. And I see plenty of fish in the water that you don’t find further north, so why shouldn’t it be the case for plankton too?

Anyway, they don’t need any help in the dive centre so I’m basically on holiday until I can get back in the water next Tuesday or Wednesday. My Italian flatmate Laetizia was off today too, so we walked across town and spent the day by the pool at another hotel. We met an American (well, Californian really — it’s practically a different country) woman there who’s been living in Egypt 10 years already and runs a learning centre in town. The centre runs various youth and community programs, English classes for Egyptians and Arabic classes for Europeans. So I’m going to see about taking some classes. We also spoke about women’s health seminars for local women, which is something that she’s interested in doing. Like in so many other countries, there’s such a need for sexual and reproductive health education here. I would love the chance to contribute. But this is Egypt and things don’t happen overnight, so we’ll see what happens…

On the way home, we stopped in at the Marianne coffee shop—our favourite hangout— for a shai and a shishah.




There was a group of Nubian musicians performing for some Italian tourists when we arrived, and one of them somehow ended up joining us for tea after the tourists were gone. Letizia is looking less than impressed in this photo because by this point he’d shown her a bunch of videos on his phone, including one of dead bodies being cut open and having their esophagi stuffed with hashish before being sewn back up again and flown to (or from?) Cairo in some sort of completely fucked-up drug smuggling operation. Or at least, that’s what I understood of his explanation. I could be wrong; I didn’t watch the video. In any case, she was a little disturbed by the fact that he thought that it was the sort of thing that was appropriate to show to both a woman and a complete stranger, not to mention that he had it on his phone in the first place.

November 27, 2007: New Faces

An ex-colleague of some of the staff organized a little barbecue in Fanadir hotel, where he now manages the dive centre, for a bunch of the staff. Grilled steak, kofta, chicken, pork and calamari, oh my! The food was great but I would have found the whole thing a little more, well, fun, if there’d been anyone else there other than Lety and I who didn’t speak German. Anyway, here are a few pics of the people I’m living and working with. (Photos were taken before I read the instruction manual for my new camera, which is why I've unintentionally brought back the grainy art-house look.

Stephie (Fifi), my German flatmate:


Laetizia, my camera-shy Italian flatmate. Que bella:




Tom, the ex-lingerie wholesaler-cum-diving instructor who lives downstairs:


Tanya, our new office girl:


And Oli, the all-around nice guy who made it all happen: